


People Who Need People

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, BAMF Bucky Barnes, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Slow burn i guess?, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Yoga, widowhawk, winterhawk - Freeform, winterwidow - Freeform, winterwidow hawk, yoga instructor Clint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-10-06 14:21:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17346815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: After getting benched for once again failing their psych evaluations, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Bucky Barnes and Natasha Romanov are forced to interact with civilians. It's all awful, until they take a yoga class taught by Clint Barton, and suddenly it's not awful at all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, this fic is the fault of CB.
> 
> Also as usual, I owe a HUGE freaking thanks to my beta reader Ro.
> 
> You two are the best.
> 
> \--

Phil Coulson looked frustrated.

 

It wasn’t an unusual look, the drawn eyebrows, pinched lips and narrowed eyes a familiar enough expression on his face that it wasn’t immediately a cause for concern.

 

Bucky had been with S.H.I.E.L.D. long enough - had partnered with Natasha long enough - that he had seen Phil’s ‘I am disappointed in you, and what’s more, so is  _ America _ ’ look so many times that it had lost most of its potency.

 

The fact that, at the very same meeting when Phil announced that he was stepping in as the pair’s handler after their  _ last _ one had resigned in a fit of pique that Natasha still, three years later, maintained was the man’s own fault entirely, Phil had looked at them with that expression probably had something to do with Bucky’s efforts to make himself immune to it.

 

He didn’t  _ like _ feeling guilty. He had, in fact, spent the better part of his life making sure he didn’t let himself feel most emotions - and guilt? Fuck guilt. He hated that one the most.

 

Natasha, he was pretty sure, had been born immune to looks like Phil’s, so she of course teased Bucky mercilessly about the fact that he still cared when Phil looked at them like  _ that _ .

 

The circumstances of today’s meeting in Phil’s office - Natasha and Bucky sitting on one side of Phil’s meticulously-organized desk and their immediate supervisor standing on the other side, arms crossed over his chest and expression weighing down Bucky’s soul - weren’t even that unique.

 

Natasha and Bucky had returned from their latest mission three days ago, had been fully checked out by medical within twelve hours of their return, been fully debriefed within forty-eight, and had suffered through their post-op psych evals that morning.

 

So, par for the course, they were now in Phil’s office to discuss the mission and come up with plans on how best to use the intel they had secured on Dragan’s terrorist cell to, hopefully, finally find the fucker and take him out.

 

Except… except, the expression on Phil’s face seemed to indicate otherwise.

 

Bucky looked over at Natasha, but, predictably, she was looking at cat photos on her phone and not paying Phil or his disappointed expression any attention at all.

 

“Sir?” Bucky offered, knowing he probably sounded the opposite of deferential.

 

Phil sighed and picked up two folders from a stack on his desk.

 

“Do you two know what these are?”

 

Natasha finally put down her phone, Phil actually talking signalling the start of the meeting in her mind.

 

“Folders with our latest performance reviews,” she answered immediately.

 

Bucky rolled his eyes, and Phil just closed his own and seemed to be saying a brief, silent prayer.

 

“Yes,” Phil agreed when he opened his eyes again. “These are your most recent performance reviews.” He dropped them down onto his desk dramatically.

 

Bucky arched an eyebrow.

 

“Is this about the collateral damage in Prague? Because-”

 

“No, this is not about the brothel you set on fire,” Phil sighed.

 

“Prison for sex slaves,” Natasha corrected, voice idle and filled with sharp edges. “That’s how I identified it in my report. James?”

 

“Same,” he agreed.

 

“The authorities in Prague are calling it a brothel. The  _ point _ , though, is that-”

 

“The girls being sent back to their families?” Bucky interrupted.

 

“Except for Ingrid. She requested a visa for France,” Natasha corrected.

 

“Right,” Bucky agreed with a nod. “Wants to be a cook.”

 

“Chef.”

 

“Is there a difference?”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes.

 

“Yes, there’s a difference. A cook-”

 

“Agents,” Phil said in a low, commanding voice.

 

Bucky and Natasha reluctantly re-focused on him.

 

“This has nothing to do with the mission. This is about your psych evals. Which you both failed.  _ Again _ .”

 

“With all due respect,” Natasha said in a voice that implied the exact opposite, “James hasn’t passed a psych eval since his six month vacation with the Taliban five years ago.”

 

Bucky glared at her.

 

“I passed the first one they made me take after I got back.”

 

“You were so high on pain meds at the time that I  _ stabbed _ you and you didn’t feel it.”

 

Bucky frowned. He didn’t actually remember that happening, but that didn’t mean Natasha hadn’t done it.

 

Phil’s disappointed expression shifted into his ‘ _ why _ am I doing this to myself?’ stare that, as usual, he directed to the ceiling.

 

Bucky and Natasha silently,  _ politely _ , waited for Phil to turn his attention back to them.

 

“There is some concern that the two of you are on the cusp of experiencing burnout. Neither of you has ever taken vacation or leave for any reason that wasn’t medical or administratively-mandated.”

 

Bucky and Natasha exchanged barely-there grins.

 

Said administrative leave had been after the two of them had done a very unauthorized investigation into the financial accounts of the Cairo S.H.I.E.L.D. station chief and found out he was embezzling government funds for a US Senator.

 

“Are you telling us we need to take a vacation?” Bucky asked.

 

“I don’t need a vacation,” Natasha scowled.

 

“Both of your therapists have, independently, expressed a concern that neither of you have any semblance of a private, personal life outside of your work. Without some sort of… civilian framework, they believe that the two of you have started taking more dangerous risks on missions, have less concern for your personal safety and for the… limitations S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have when it comes to pursuing criminals.”

 

“I’m concerned about Natasha’s safety,” Bucky argued.

 

“I’ve kept James alive this long with only three serious injuries - and those were all his own fault.”

 

Phil rubbed his eyes with one hand.

 

“That- that is exactly the point. I said  _ personal _ safety. Barnes, would you hesitate to sacrifice your own life if it helped the mission?”

 

“No.”

 

Phil made an expansive hand gesture.

 

“Exactly.”

 

“Natasha would hesitate, though - and she’d keep me from dying for something stupid.”

 

Natasha nodded in agreement.

 

“The co-dependency is another issue,” Phil sighed.

 

“We aren’t co-dependent,” Natasha said, again using her idle voice that was anything but. “James and I have successfully completed solo missions.”

 

“But you both refuse to work with anyone else,” Phil pointed out.

 

Bucky and Natasha turned identical ‘and?’ expressions on Phil, and he sighed again.

 

“Barnes, when your therapist asked you if you had any hobbies, you told her that you attend gun shows.”

 

Bucky shrugged.

 

“I do.”

 

Phil glared.

 

“You attend them and then arrest fugitives and terrorists under the guise of being an undercover local law enforcement officer.”

 

“ _ Technically _ , my S.H.I.E.L.D. certifications allow me to act as a L.E.O. when the situation arises,” Bucky had to point out.

 

“Oh, I meant to ask, how did Knoxville go?” Natasha turned to him, and Bucky smirked.

 

“Got seven.”

 

“Not as good as Orlando. Or Vegas.”

 

Bucky sighed and shrugged.

 

“Yeah, but all the crazies go to Orlando and Vegas. That was almost too easy.”

 

“Barnes, that is  _ not _ a hobby,” Phil interrupted. 

 

“Civilians claim it is,” Bucky argued. “Besides, I  _ do _ go there to look at guns. Where do you think I bought that Ballester-Molina I got you for your birthday last year?”

 

Phil opened his mouth, but then closed it again without saying anything.

 

“I have hobbies,” Natasha said with a superior little smirk.

 

“Pretending to be a UN translator is not a hobby,” Bucky sneered.

 

“Neither is repeatedly breaking the obstacle course, driving course and shooting range best scores,” Phil added.

 

“I knit.” Natasha lifted her chin, as if daring either of them to call her on it.

 

Phil looked over at Bucky, who had to stare back with wide eyes. It was the first  _ he _ was hearing of it. But Natasha collected secrets like Bucky collected guns and knives.

 

“Neither of you have had a long-term, intimate physical or romantic relationship with anyone not associated with your work,  _ ever _ , according to both of your self-reports. And since you are both… disturbingly meticulous in your self-reporting of encounters with potential security risks, I have to take that at face value.”

 

“I resent the fact that my relationship with someone who became a confidential informant doesn’t count as a long-term intimate relationship,” Bucky said.

 

Natasha snorted a laugh.

 

“You only dated him to  _ turn _ him into a C.I.,” she said.

 

“I still dated him,” Bucky grumbled.

 

“It doesn’t count,” Phil maintained.

 

“Are you concerned about our sex lives, sir?” Natasha asked.

 

“You shouldn’t be,” Bucky assured him. “We both have lots of sex.”

 

“Again, I am  _ aware _ , from your previously-mentioned self-reports,” Phil said. “I, and your  _ therapists, _ are concerned that neither of you has any meaningful personal relationships that allow you to be intimate with someone else on a long-term basis. They believe that both of you suffer from a lack of commitment in your personal lives.”

 

“I’ve been having sex with Natasha for eight years,” Bucky said. “How is that not commitment?”

 

Phil stared, first at Bucky and then at Natasha, who only raised both her eyebrows at him.

 

“The two of you have been dating for eight years and never thought to  _ mention _ that to any of your four previous handlers? It’s against S.H.I.E.L.D. regulations to work directly with family or romantic partners.”

 

“We aren’t dating,” Natasha shrugged. “We have sex, with each other, when we want.”

 

“It’s not listed in any of your self-reports,” Phil pointed out.

 

“Those are for potential security risks,” Bucky said. “Natasha and I have the same security clearance, so there’s not a potential security issue.”

 

Phil stared at the both of them as if just now seeing who they really were.

 

“It’s just sex,” Bucky said. “Unless it gets the therapists to pass us?”

 

“No. Your therapists believe you are both emotionally detached from everyone and everything around you, and that it will start to impact your job performance and likely lead to one or both of you dying, an international incident, or the failure of a mission.”

 

“We’ve never failed a mission,” Natasha said, tone scathing.

 

“ _ That’s _ what you took away from what I just said?” Phil spread his hands wide. “Not the potential death or the international incident, but a mission failure? This is exactly why your therapists are concerned.”

 

Natasha crossed her arms over her chest, and she looked like she was sulking. It was almost adorable.

 

Almost, because Bucky had seen her sit in that exact same position once before launching herself across a table and cutting a man’s throat.

 

Phil sighed.

 

“Look, the two of you are among the best agents at S.H.I.E.L.D. But mission results aren’t the only thing that I, as your handler, care about. I need to know that when the two of you leave work, you actually have a  _ life _ . I am aware that both of you dislike the mandated therapy sessions after missions, and I am aware of your personal feelings on every single therapist S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever assigned you - and between the two of you, you have seen  _ every _ S.H.I.E.L.D. therapist on staff. But they aren’t wrong about this. I’ve noticed both of you growing more distant, more detached over the last three years. It isn’t healthy, and it isn’t sustainable.”

 

“So… we’re being fired?” Bucky asked, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.

 

His therapist asked him, every damn session, what Bucky would do if he could no longer be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. And every damn time, Bucky just glared at her until she asked her next question.

 

Because he didn’t  _ know _ how to be anything else.

 

His entire life, since the first time he broke up a fight between a skinny kid and a schoolyard bully, had been about protecting other people. It was the one thing he  _ wanted _ to do.

 

“No, of course not,” Phil said. “That’s ridiculous.”

 

Bucky wasn’t the only one to relax at Phil’s words. Beside him, Natasha rolled her shoulders in an almost imperceptible release of tension.

 

“Then what?” she asked.

 

“You two are on desk duty for the next month.”

 

“Month? What about Dragan and-”

 

“Rumlow and Rollins have been assigned the case.”

 

Beside Bucky, Natasha went right back to being tense, and the way her green eyes froze and narrowed affected even Phil.

 

“Sir,” she said in her best ‘I’m not blowing up the building right now because I have manners’ voice, “respectfully, those two are idiots, and James and I have been tracking Dragan for almost a year.”

 

“Just because their methods are different than yours does not make them idiots.”

 

“Why can’t Rogers and Carter take the case?” Bucky asked.

 

“Because they have their own caseload to attend to. For the next thirty days, the two of you will show up here at nine and leave at five, Monday through Friday, and you will  _ not _ spend any time outside of those hours in any S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. That includes the training rooms and the recruitment test centers. You two will act like this is a  _ job _ and not your  _ life _ .”

 

“What happens after thirty days? We get to go clean up the Alpha Team’s mess?” Bucky asked, not bothering to hide his disdain.

 

“After thirty days, the two of you will go through psychological evaluation again, and if the therapists believe that you are making progress, you will be reinstated for active duty. This is not a  _ punishment _ ,” Phil sighed when he took in both of their mulish expressions. “This is an intervention, because the two of you are valuable for more than your abilities to complete your missions. Do you understand?”

 

Bucky gave Phil a jerky nod, but Natasha just stared at the wall above Phil’s head.

 

“Dismissed,” Phil said after a painfully awkward moment of silence.

 

Bucky let Natasha beat him to the door, but he did keep pace with her as she stalked down the hall and towards the elevator. 

 

She was silent on the entire ride down to the garage, glaring out of the glass walls on the side of the Triskelion at DC spread out before them.

 

“I hate civilians,” she muttered, at last, when the doors opened and they stepped out of the elevator.

 

Bucky followed her towards her car of the month - a sleek black Camaro that she claimed wasn’t hers but refused to tell him how or where she got it from.

 

“Same,” Bucky admitted as he got into the passenger seat.

 

She glared over at him.

 

“What? This isn’t my fault. You failed the psych eval just as much as I did. Probably more. And  _ knitting _ ? That’s really the best you could come up with?”

 

“He didn’t question it, did he?”

 

Bucky snorted, and then held on for dear life as Natasha put the car into gear and sent the car flying around a corner and towards the garage exit.

 

“He was too afraid you were going to pull out a knitting needle and  _ stab _ him with it,” Bucky snarked.

 

Natasha grinned, looking more than a little triumphant.

 

“Oh my god, have you been practicing killing people with knitting needles?”

 

“You once spent a week figuring out eight different ways to use a sock to kill someone. Don’t judge me.”

 

Bucky huffed, but she was right. Even though he had no idea how she knew that.

 

“We don’t even  _ know _ any civilians,” Natasha groused after turning onto 23rd street.

 

“No. But Steve does.”

 

Natasha smirked and, with zero warning or  _ turn signal _ , made a U-turn on the road.

 

“Yes, he does,” she agreed.

 

-o-


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I swear I'm working on the next chapter of Nobody Lost, Nobody Found.  
> Life is just kinda kicking my ass at the moment.

Bucky had been friends with Steve ever since they were kids, ever since Bucky pulled some asshole with twenty pounds on Steve away from punching the scrawny blond kid and Steve decided to take aim at  _ Bucky _ for daring to think he needed help.

 

They had been friends since, had gone through a disastrous ‘dating’ phase in college that had almost ruined their friendship, and then joined S.H.I.E.L.D. together just like they had always planned. For their first two years, they had even worked together, until Steve had been paired up with Agent Peggy Carter and Bucky had been introduced to Natasha ‘I have made my last three partners quit after less than a week and you’re next’ Romanoff. 

 

It had been good, working with new partners, because Steve was a crazy idiot with no sense of self-preservation, and the time apart in the field meant that the loose, frayed ends of their friendship that Bucky had almost destroyed in their messy breakup had the chance to mend. 

 

And then Steve had met Sam. Or, rather, Sam had been one of the PJs who rescued Bucky in Afghanistan, and Steve had decided that the best way to pay Sam back for saving Bucky’s life was to suck his dick for the rest of eternity. At least, that was what Bucky had wanted to say in his best man speech at their wedding last year. Peggy, who had demanded to see the speech ahead of time, casually threatened to castrate him if he dared make this day anything less than a fairytale for Steve and his actual Disney prince, Sam Wilson.

 

Sam had retired from the Air Force a year after rescuing Bucky, and had gone to graduate school to earn his Master’s in Counseling, and now worked with the VA.

 

So, even though he hadn’t  _ always _ been a civilian - he was the closest thing to one that Bucky and Natasha trusted.

 

It took Natasha only half an hour to navigate the traffic and pull up at the little brick Cape Cod house in Arlington that Sam and Steve had purchased two years ago, because they were  _ frighteningly _ domestic. Steve had even started up a neighborhood watch. He even volunteered to be a crossing guard at the local elementary school. He and Sam  _ decorated their house _ for holidays.

 

Bucky almost never went over to their house anymore without backup - usually in the form of Natasha, but, when forced, with Peggy, because she might be willing to murder anyone who made Steve unhappy but she was still willing to give him shit for being so goddamn domesticated.

 

They were in luck, because Steve’s bike was in the driveway and Sam was actually out front, switching out the flag from some kind of patriotic beach scene - which Bucky knew for a  _ fact _ Natasha had given Sam for his birthday as a joke, but which the other man had embraced with an enthusiasm that Bucky suspected was a long-con - to an equally hideous ‘Welcome’ flag with a cornucopia on it. Bucky had been the one to give Sam that flag.

 

He and Natasha  _ would _ break him. No matter how long it took.

 

“Think it’s Sam or Steve’s night to cook?” Natasha mused as she parked behind Steve’s bike and Sam waved at them.

 

“If it’s Steve’s, we aren’t staying for dinner,” Bucky growled. 

 

“Unless they’ve restocked the good vodka. Drink enough and you can’t taste how bad it is.”

 

“True,” Bucky agreed.

 

“Hey, l didn’t realize we were getting invaded by the KGB today,” Sam greeted them when they got out of the car.

 

Sam thought he was fucking hilarious, even though he fucking wasn’t.

 

When Sam had pulled Bucky from the Taliban’s tender care, Bucky had been… out of it, to put it mildly, and apparently had only spoken  _ Russian _ . Sam still wouldn’t let him live it down.

 

And since Natasha had actually been  _ born _ in Moscow, Sam delighted in giving the both of them shit.

 

“Who’s cooking dinner?” Bucky asked without preamble. Better to know before they went inside.

 

Sam rolled his eyes.

 

“Me. Why? You gonna ask nicely for an invite?”

 

Bucky and Natasha stared at him.

 

After a moment, Sam gave up and threw his hands in the air.

 

“Yeah, sure, of  _ course _ I’d love it if you two stayed for dinner. Just what I’ve been hoping for all week!”

 

Smirking only a little, they followed Sam into the house.

 

“Babe, your assholes are here to beg for food again,” Sam yelled up the stairs.

 

“Which assholes?” Steve called down, emerging himself a moment later wearing jeans and a t-shirt with actual paint splotches on his face and arms.

 

“You get into a fight with a kindergartner?” Bucky asked him.

 

Steve rolled his eyes and pulled first Natasha and then Bucky into a hug.

 

“I’m just doing a little bit of painting. It’s nothing.”

 

Bucky glared at him.

 

“It’s not nothing, Rogers.”

 

“Exactly,” Sam agreed, stepping up to his husband’s side and putting an arm over his shoulders. “I keep telling him, painting walls is probably how Michelangelo practiced for the Sistine Chapel.”

 

Steve snorted, and even Bucky had to grin.

 

He and Sam had, obviously, gotten off to a rocky start. But anyone who could both see Steve’s worth  _ and _ give him shit was someone Bucky could never really dislike.

 

“What are you working on?” Bucky asked.

 

“It’s…” Steve ‘I ran two miles naked through DC one night because I won’t back down from a dare’ Rogers blushed. “Self-portrait,” he mumbled.

 

Natasha raised her eyebrows, but even she knew where the line was when it came to teasing Steve.

 

She turned to Sam.

 

“What are you feeding us?”

 

Sam rolled his eyes, leaned in to press a kiss to Steve’s cheek, and then let him go.

 

“You’re  _ lucky _ I was planning on grilling tonight. Fucking leeches.” He said the last with a fond roll of his eyes, and Natasha smirked.

 

“Pour me a drink and I’ll pretend to be impressed when you light a fire,” she instructed, looping her arm through his and leading him further into his own house.

 

Steve grinned after them for a moment, and then turned to Bucky. The grin faded a bit, and there was obvious concern in Steve’s eyes.

 

“Everything ok? I saw the report on Prague.”

 

Bucky rolled his shoulders.

 

“It was fine. We’re fine. She’s fine. We’re dealing with it.”

 

Steve nodded, and didn’t pry. He also knew where certain lines were, and asking Bucky to talk about his partner was definitely one of those lines.

 

“So, is this visit just for food or…?”

 

“Maybe I just missed your stupid face, you punk,” Bucky said.

 

“Right. Can’t blame you there. It’s a damn stupid face.”

 

Bucky snorted.

 

“That why you’re memorializing it?”

 

“I’m not- It’s not about that.” Steve was blushing again, and Bucky almost regretted teasing him.

 

“Then what is it?” Bucky asked in a softer, lower tone.

 

“Just something Sam said, a few months ago…” Steve sighed. “After that op in Yemen?”

 

“You mean the one where you almost fucking  _ died _ ? Yeah. I remember.”

 

Steve ignored Bucky’s glare.

 

“Anyway, after that, Sam told me that sometimes I don’t… really seem to  _ see _ myself. Not just what I look like, but what I’m feeling? He said that I focus so much on doing the things I need to do that I forget to  _ want _ things just for me.”

 

In a weird way, it wasn’t unlike the conversation - or lecture, really - that Bucky and Natasha had suffered through with Phil.

 

“Steve-”

 

“I’m fine. Really. It’s not- It was just something, and it made me think. I don’t know. Anyway, I started painting again, and then Sam said it’d be nice to have something to look at and fight with when I’m somewhere across the world doing stupid shit.”

 

“So you’re giving him a self-portrait? Steve, you are such a  _ punk _ .”

 

Steve grinned at him, and Bucky looped an arm around his neck and used it to reel him in and mess with his hair.

 

Laughing, Steve pulled away.

 

“Nice deflection, by the way,” Steve said as he led Bucky into the kitchen.

 

Sam was painting a glaze of some kind on a huge rack of ribs while Natasha sat at the kitchen island and sipped at a half-empty glass that Bucky would bet had been full when it was handed to her.

 

She shot Bucky a look, and he shook his head at her.

 

Steve grabbed two beers from the fridge, handing one to Bucky and the other to Sam, before pouring himself a glass of vodka and tonic water. He added a lime twist, because Natasha had  _ corrupted _ him, and joined her at the island.

 

They clinked their glasses together.

 

“So, you two gonna come clean, or is this going to be one of those nights when you drink all my good vodka and I still have to get it out of Barnes over ice cream?” Sam asked as he finished with the ribs.

 

Bucky glared at him and gave him a choice finger. Sam returned the finger and just grinned after taking an exaggerated sip of his beer.

 

“We’ve been benched,” Natasha said, voice as empty as the glass she set down on the marble countertop in front of her.

 

Steve and Sam wore nearly identical expressions of confusion.

 

“Because of Prague?” Sam asked.

 

Bucky glared at Steve.

 

“What? He’s my husband. He was Special Forces.”

 

“He’s a  _ civilian _ ,” Bucky reminded Steve.

 

“Fuck off, Barnes. I’m a civilian who humped your ass to safety.”

 

“Humped my ass, huh?” Bucky leered at him. “I knew you had a thing for me.”

 

“Not because of Prague,” Natasha sighed.

 

She got up from her seat and walked over to the freezer, pulling out the vodka and topping off her glass without bothering to add any more tonic or ice.

 

Steve gave Bucky a concerned glance.

 

Bucky pointedly looked away.

 

“Vienna?” Steve guessed.

 

Sam snorted a laugh.

 

“They should have gotten freakin’ medals because of Vienna,” he said.

 

“Amen,” Bucky agreed, and raised his glass. Sam raised his back in a salute that was only partially sarcastic.

 

Bucky and Natasha deserved fucking  _ sainthood _ after Vienna. Whiny-ass diplomats.

 

“So…” Sam fished.

 

Bucky took another sip of his drink, letting Natasha take point as usual.

 

“S.H.I.E.L.D. is concerned that James and I aren’t  _ human _ .”

 

Bucky had to snort. Phil hadn’t said it that way, but that was  _ exactly _ what it had felt like.

 

“And water is wet. What else is new?” Sam asked.

 

There were times when Bucky really didn’t like Sam - and he could admit to himself that that stemmed from the fact that Sam had seen Bucky at his absolute ‘leave me here to die’ worst. And there were times when Bucky  _ really _ liked Sam.

 

“We failed our psych evals again,” Bucky clarified. “And Phil thinks we’re going to go off and do something stupid on our next mission. So we’re benched until we learn how to have feelings and hobbies and relationships with civilians.”

 

“Yikes,” Sam said.

 

“Good,” Steve said.

 

Bucky glared at him. Natasha got up and poured herself another glass of vodka.

 

Of the two of them, she was used to failing less, in that she had never been captured by the Taliban on a solo-mission. Still,  _ neither _ of them liked to fail - and the only reason Natasha was able to go to the shooting range, obstacle course and driving course to set new records was because Bucky took the time to break hers. 

 

Being told they weren’t  _ good enough _ didn’t sit well with either of them, but Bucky wasn’t surprised by how hard Natasha was taking it. She had spent her entire life working to be  _ good enough _ .

 

“No, it’s good,” Steve insisted. “The two of you take too many risks-”

 

“That’s rich, coming from  _ you _ ,” Bucky sneered.

 

Steve lifted one eyebrow.

 

“Exactly.”

 

Well. That stung.

 

“We worry about you two,” Steve continued, gesturing towards Sam.

 

“Didn’t know you cared, Wilson.”

 

“I went to the trouble of saving you once. Least you could do is stay alive,” Sam said. “Plus, I like her.” He pointed at Natasha. “Any situation tough enough to kill one of you is probably going to kill both of you. And I don’t want that to happen.”

 

Wow.

 

There were a lot of feelings being admitted to that Bucky was  _ not _ prepared to handle.

 

Natasha, judging from her third empty glass, wasn’t either.

 

“So,” Steve sighed, and intercepted Natasha when she went to pick up the now half-empty vodka bottle. He poured some into his glass before giving it back to her and letting her get started on her fourth glass. Bucky actually wondered if the  _ first _ glass had had any tonic in it. “You came over here because Sam is the only civilian you know and don’t hate.”

 

“I hate him,” Bucky argued.

 

Both Steve and Sam looked at him.

 

“Sometimes.”

 

“Right back at ya,” Sam agreed, and then he grinned. “Wait.  _ Wait _ . The two scariest motherfuckers on the planet are here because they need  _ me _ , little old Sam Wilson, to play Yoda for them?”

 

“This is becoming one of those sometimes,” Bucky growled.

 

Sam shook his head, still grinning, and took another sip of his beer.

 

“Nah, man. This is rich. This is- this is gonna keep me going for  _ years _ .”

 

“Are you going to help us or not?” Natasha demanded.

 

Sam set down his beer bottle.

 

“Of course I’m gonna help you. I have a weakness for tragic idiots,” he said with a meaningful look at Steve. “Just let me get these ribs on the grill, and then I’ll come back and impart my great wisdom on all things human.”

 

Sam balanced the platter of ribs on one arm while he opened the door to the backyard. He looked at Natasha and Bucky again, chuckled, and then went outside.

 

“We could kill him and make it look like an accident,” Bucky mused.

 

“I could kill you both and not care about getting caught,” Steve said in the exact same tone.

 

Bucky glared at him.

 

Steve smirked.

 

“Hobbies, huh? Doesn’t Natasha’s knitting count as a hobby?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So... a lot of people have expressed an interest in Clint's chemistry getting added to these other human disasters. I have to tell you, this is not that chapter. NEXT CHAPTER IS THAT CHAPTER. I promise. Clint arrives in chapter 4. This is the last of the set-up chapters before we meet our yogi.  
> \------------
> 
>  
> 
> \-------------

Wednesday nights were the nights Sam roasted chicken, and when Natasha and Bucky showed up promptly at 6:30, Natasha with a bottle of vodka to replace the one she had emptied the previous Thursday and Bucky with a bottle of chilled white wine, Steve didn’t even look surprised when he opened the door to find them on his front porch.

 

The dinner table was already set with four plates, which meant that Natasha and Bucky were becoming predictable, or that Sam - it had to be Sam, because the only form of ‘preparation’ Steve Rogers had ever cared about was one hundred percent about sex - had thought to set out just in case. Or, Bucky hoped, Sam and Steve had invited some couple over for dinner, and Natasha and Bucky were crashing.

 

“So,” Sam waited until everyone was seated, Natasha and Bucky on their second glass of wine and Steve’s plate piled high with  _ half the chicken _ , “how were your first attempts at pretending to be human?”

 

“I took a cooking class - I can now make chicken alfredo better than Rogers - and I went on two dates. And I got banned from two airsoft centers,” Natasha said.

 

“Two dates?” Bucky asked. He had only heard about the one on Monday night, when Natasha had complained about the woman staying the entire night instead of sneaking off while Natasha pretended to be asleep like  _ decent people did _ . Natasha had told him about it while they sparred yesterday afternoon, using the last two hours of their mandated eight-hour work day to intimidate the new recruits scheduled to use the gym during that time frame.

 

“The other was just a coffee date,” Natasha shrugged.

 

“How did you get banned from two airsoft centers?” Steve asked.

 

Natasha gave him a look. 

 

Steve sighed and turned his attention to Bucky.

 

“Well?”

 

“One date. Banned from that laser tag place over on Kennedy. Signed up for a knife-making class, but the guy double-booked his glass blowing class so he cancelled it.”

 

“Wow. You two did good. You actually tried,” Sam congratulated them.

 

“They got banned from laser tag and airsoft,” Steve pointed out.

 

“They’re the two most competitive assholes I’ve ever met,” Sam argued. “Of course they got banned from  _ shooting sports _ .”

 

Steve still looked a little disappointed in them.

 

“Did anyone get stabbed since last week?” Sam asked.

 

Natasha gave him a blank look.

 

Sam arched an eyebrow at Bucky.

 

Bucky had survived six months of torture at the hands of the Taliban. He loudly munched on a green bean. It was so crisp. He wondered how Sam managed to get them to taste so good but still be so fresh.

 

“Bucky,” Steve said in that sigh of his that Bucky had never, not from the first time he had heard it, been able to deny.

 

“It was a mugging,” Bucky grumbled, “and if the asshole had dropped his knife when I told him to, I wouldn’t have stabbed him with it.”

 

“Someone tried to mug  _ you _ ?” Sam asked incredulously.

 

“No. I was walking through the Mall at night and came across an incident.”

 

Sam rolled his eyes.

 

“You mean you went looking for trouble.”

 

Bucky shoved three green beans into his mouth.

 

Sam shook his head and turned back to Natasha.

 

“Well? If Barnes stabbed someone, we know you did too.”

 

Natasha used her fork to move food around on her plate.

 

“Coffee date,” she eventually sighed. “He was  _ bratva _ . The FBI has been tailing him for months, and couldn’t make an arrest or use him for anything. I only stabbed him because he was stupid enough to follow me into the alley behind Starbucks. He’s  _ fine _ ,” she added at Steve’s look of horror. “Only a few stitches, and he’s feeling a lot more cooperative towards the FBI.”

 

“Natasha that’s not a  _ date _ , that’s a sting operation,” Sam admonished her.

 

Bucky  _ barely _ refrained from congratulating Natasha out loud.

 

She met his gaze, though, and smirked back at him.

 

“Jesus. You two need  _ Jesus _ .”

 

“Hey, you said we did good. You said you were proud of us,” Bucky pointed out.

 

Sam glared at him.

 

“That was before you admitted the two of you were trying to impersonate Batman. Anyway. Whatever. It’s fine. I’ve signed you two up for a book club.”

 

“A what?” Bucky asked,  _ sure _ he had misheard that.

 

“Book club. Meets tomorrow night at that tea place on Lexington. I even got you two copies of the book.”

 

“Is this… your book club?” Natasha asked in a tone of voice that made it clear she was re-evaluating everything she thought she knew about Sam.

 

“Hell, no. No, no, no. No way would I let you two embarrass me at my book club.”

 

Bucky turned wide eyes on Steve.

 

“You married a guy who goes to  _ book clubs _ ?”

 

Steve rolled his eyes.

 

“Not everyone is an anti-social asshole, Bucky.”

 

And - well. Fine. Fair.

 

“You two will have a great time,” Sam assured them. 

 

They did not have a great time.

 

The book,  _ The Hunger Games _ , had been an easy read - after dinner on Wednesday, Natasha had invited Bucky back to her place, and they both stayed up to read the book and do pertinent research and decide on talking points.

 

The tea place had, to Natasha’s lack of surprise but unending disappointment and Bucky’s relief,  _ not _ had any Russian tea.

 

The… club was comprised entirely of women. Bucky was the  _ only _ man present. Even the nighttime staff at the tea place was all female. 

 

Fully half of the women ignored Bucky entirely, even when he said something to the group about the book, and the other half stared at him as though he was naked.

 

When, after an hour, the group took a break, Bucky frantically signalled Natasha that they needed to  _ escape _ . She was sitting on the opposite side of the room from him, having insisted that they pretend they didn’t know each other.

 

She ignored his signal.

 

Two of the women descended on Bucky as he militantly poured honey into his third cup of Earl Grey. 

 

“So, Jamey,” the blonde-haired woman said - either blind or deliberately misreading his very clearly printed name tag that said  _ James _ \- “are you new in town?” Her name tag declared her to be a Sarah, and Bucky scowled in irritation. There was no easy way to butcher that. Maybe he could call her Tarah? No, that would just sound like he had a lisp.

 

The other woman, Maggie, rolled her eyes, bringing Bucky’s attention to her dark purple eyeliner.

 

She was, he decided, cute. Mid-twenties. Blonde hair edged with purple that was a few shades lighter than her eyeliner. If he at least got her number, maybe this whole night wouldn’t be a total waste of his time.

 

He looked between Maggie and Sarah, and saw more than a passing resemblance.

 

Mother and daughter. 

 

Bucky stopped pouring honey and walked away.

 

Nope. No way was he getting into that kind of mess again.

 

The discussion lasted for another hour, by which point Natasha - or  _ April, _ as her name tag said in a barely legible scrawl - had won the support of a few of the other women and the ire of several others by suggesting the book was a grossly inadequate attempt to modernize  _ The Handmaid’s Tale _ . Bucky had decided to keep his mouth shut after the Sarah and Maggie thing, and he enjoyed himself a lot more as he just sat there and watched Natasha rile up the masses.

 

Not enough, of course, to  _ ever _ go back. But still.

 

They left together, Bucky making the effort to flirt with Natasha and invite her home, and she made him work for it, pretending like she wasn’t interested, like she didn’t  _ do that kind of thing _ , but eventually conceded and allowed him to walk her to her car.

 

She took him home, because while she didn’t mind his apartment, Bucky knew that she preferred her own. He had been joking about the sex - playing into her role as  _ April, _ and why hadn’t she told him beforehand that they were going undercover for the damn book club? - but when Bucky started to walk in the direction of his own apartment, she arched an eyebrow at him.

 

“Not coming up?”

 

“Oh.” Bucky really hadn’t considered it. He wasn’t  _ against _ it. He was almost never against it, when Natasha was involved. “Sure.”

 

She rolled her eyes.

 

“Don’t go doing me any favors.”

 

He smirked at her, and caught the door to her lobby before she slammed it in his face.

 

They both nodded to Alex, the night-duty doorman, who nodded back.

 

“I think I was almost propositioned by a mother and daughter,” Bucky had to tell her when they got into the elevator, because if he didn’t get it off of his mind he was going to be thinking about it all night.

 

“Mm. Sarah and Maggie?”

 

“You saw?”

 

She smirked at him.

 

“I might have mentioned that you looked like exactly the type to go for threesomes. Especially with  _ sisters _ .”

 

“They weren’t sisters.”

 

“No, but Sarah was definitely going to pretend they were,” Natasha assured him as they got off on her floor.

 

“I hate you,” he muttered, but dutifully followed her down the hall to her apartment.

 

“Yes, of course you do.”

 

She unlocked her door, tossed her phone and keys onto the small console table in the foyer of her apartment, and Bucky locked the door behind them.

 

Natasha put one hand around his neck and pulled his head down so that she could kiss him.

 

It was possessive, her mouth curved into a smirk against his, her nails biting just-so into his scalp.

 

“You didn’t complain the last time you had a threesome with two women who were pretending to be sisters,” she reminded him.

 

Bucky ran his hands down her sides, over her ass and to her thighs. He lifted, and she obligingly wrapped her legs around his waist.

 

“That’s because one of them was you,” he said.

 

She was still smirking as she kissed him again, but this time she parted her lips and sucked his lower lip into her mouth. She bit down, just hard enough to send a sharp shock of adrenaline through Bucky.

 

It was only because he had navigated the darkness of her apartment so many times before that Bucky was able to carry her into the bedroom without dropping her.

 

Natasha was damn distracting when she wanted to be, and it wasn’t just her mouth that she was using on him.

 

She dug the heels of her stiletto boots into his ass, and even though she kept one hand in his hair, the other was already unbuttoning his shirt and teasing at his chest.

 

They had taken  _ very _ different approaches to their attire for the book club. Natasha had shown up looking like some kind of shark - in a white sheath dress that was short enough to make Bucky think about  _ Basic Instinct _ all night, and red leather stiletto ankle boots. She hadn’t looked like anyone else there, had stood out like a wolf among sheep. Bucky, on the other hand, had ditched his work tie and stayed in his gray trousers and blue button-up. He had  _ tried _ to look like one of the sheep.

 

By the time Bucky had them in her bedroom, Natasha already had his shirt completely unbuttoned and untucked, and was alternating between dragging her nails over his chest and gently rolling his nipples between her fingers to make him groan.

 

Still holding her, Bucky eased Natasha onto the bed and then let her go.

 

She unwrapped her legs and arms from around him, and let him take off his shirt.

 

Bucky reached for her boots, gently pulling them off and dropping them over the edge of the bed.

 

That accomplished, Bucky leaned down for another kiss.

 

Natasha’s tongue delved into his mouth, and even though he  _ knew _ there hadn’t been any of her awful tea at the place, she still tasted just a little like raspberry jam.

 

Bucky smoothed her dress up her thighs, until it was around her waist and his fingers were tracing over the lace of her panties.

 

She hummed approval into his mouth when Bucky teased one finger between her skin and the waistband, and Bucky curved his hand, cupping her groin and pressing his thumb against her heat.

 

Natasha’s hum turned into a pleased little moan, and her fingers curled into his hair again.

 

Bucky left her panties on, teasing her through the satin until they were damp, and Natasha’s kiss devolved into more teeth than tongue.

 

He pulled away from her mouth, and she glared up at him.

 

“Still don’t want any favors from me?” he asked.

 

Her glare, even in the darkness of her bedroom, was positively glacial.

 

“I can kill you,” she reminded him.

 

Bucky laughed and bent his head, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to her jaw, and then trailed his lips down her throat.

 

“I know. That’s the appeal,” he admitted.

 

Which was only partially true. It  _ had _ been the appeal, at first, when they had been partners for barely three months and had just survived a firefight in Caracas that should have left both of them bleeding out in a gutter. They had been told to lay low until they could be extracted, and, still high on adrenaline, had spent three hours fucking like it was an Olympic sport.

 

Now though, as much as Natasha’s terror-inspiring competency turned him on, there was more to Bucky’s attraction. She  _ knew _ him, his weaknesses, and she trusted him, at least a little. At least enough to let him know some of her own weaknesses.

 

Bucky kissed her breasts through the fabric of her dress, opening his mouth and fitting it around the hard peak of a nipple through the layers of fabric, and biting down until Natasha cried out and arched her back off the bed.

 

Bucky let himself tease her breasts for a few more minutes, alternating between his hands and mouth, until Natasha grew impatient enough to nudge his head lower.

 

He laughed into the hollow of her belly, but followed her silent command.

 

Natasha’s panties were just a shade darker than her pale skin, and Bucky ran his tongue over the seam between fabric and her flesh, around her waist from left to right.

 

She shivered, and barely kept herself still as he repeated the action on first her left thigh and then the right.

 

Bucky still didn’t remove the panties, however, and instead used his hands to spread her thighs and planted himself between her legs.

 

He rubbed his nose against the damp fabric, inhaling, and she squirmed around him but kept silent.

 

There were times when they talked - times when Natasha gave Bucky very graphic instructions and times when Bucky used his mouth to lavish praise as much as he used it to torment her, and there were other times when they laughed or dared or said nonsense to keep each other distracted - but there were also times when they were quiet.

 

It had taken Bucky  _ years _ to figure out that an almost-silent Natasha didn’t mean he was doing something wrong. It was a Natasha who was focused on pleasure, and on the moment, and who didn’t need words to keep herself there.

 

Bucky kissed the center of her panties, and then opened his mouth and pressed his tongue into the groove between her lips. He traced the line of her, just this side of teasing, forcing Natasha to roll her hips against him if she wanted more pressure.

 

Which she did while at the same time using her grip on his hair to guide him towards her clit. 

 

He tried to lick at it through the fabric, and decided it was time to get rid of the barrier between her and his mouth.

 

Bucky hooked his fingers into the waistband and tugged it down, Natasha loosening her grip on his hair enough that he could move, and Bucky bent her left knee so that he could slide the garment free. 

 

When he didn’t move to remove them from her right leg, Natasha huffed a soft laugh and did it herself.

 

Bucky smirked at her, and then bowed his head again.

 

She was so hot, wet and open before him, letting him thrust his tongue into her vagina, finding the angle that forced his nose against her clit and earning another soft moan.

 

He loved her like this, thighs trembling against his cheeks, hands in his hair partly to guide him and partly to anchor herself. 

 

The soft hitches in her breath, the way she curled away from too much stimulation and then rolled against him when she needed more - all of it got Bucky off just as much as actually, eventually, fucking her did. 

 

Natasha was so contained, all of the time, so very in command of her body and the world around her, that taking her apart with his mouth was one of the most gratifying things Bucky could think of doing.

 

After a few minutes of teasing her like that, though, he had to pull away and reach above her head for a pillow.

 

Natasha obligingly lifted her hips for him, and Bucky adjusted her to his liking and then dipped back into her.

 

This time, he focused his tongue and lips on her clit, having worked her up with the glancing, unfocused brush of his nose long enough that the flat of his tongue had her biting back a gasp and her nails became brilliant pricks of sensation in his scalp.

 

Bucky eased back, gentled his tongue until it was just a caress, lapping against her slick folds and that tight nub until Natasha’s grip had eased but her breathing had grown even more erratic.

 

He trailed his right index and middle fingers over her perineum, making her shudder, and then curved them into her vagina. He twisted his hand to find the right angle, to delve deeper into her and stroke up until he found the spot along her walls that had Natasha curling up and crying out.

 

Sucking her clit into his mouth, Bucky abandoned his efforts at being gentle, instead taking her apart with his fingers and his tongue and a very restrained application of teeth, until Natasha was pulling his head closer and closer, and then she fell, gasping almost silently, as pleasure bowed her body taut and her fingers clutched at his hair in desperation.

 

Bucky held himself still, let himself give her clit one last, lingering flick of his tongue before he pulled his fingers free and moved away from her. There were times when he  _ had _ continued to fuck her through an orgasm, forcing her to ride out the sensation until she was in the throes of another, but tonight wasn’t one of those nights.

 

He crawled off the bed, aware of Natasha’s gaze on him as he rounded it and searched through the nightstand for a condom.

 

She continued to watch him as he unfastened his trousers and then stepped out of his shoes before pushing the trousers and his briefs to the floor.

 

Only when he was naked and climbing back into the bed with her did Natasha even bother to move. She rose to her knees in a movement that shouldn’t look so graceful, and she pulled her loose hair to one side of her neck, giving Bucky access to the zipper on the back of her dress.

 

He eased it down, and then smoothed the fabric off of Natasha’s shoulders and down to her belly.

 

Bucky bent his head to kiss her, letting Natasha taste herself on his lips. She smirked. She always took a sort of prideful joy in that, in fucking her tongue into Bucky’s mouth after he had so thoroughly fucked  _ his _ tongue into her body. She worked to make him breathless, until he was clutching at her hips and so hard that friction of  _ any _ kind would be enough to get him off.

 

Natasha shrugged her bra off, somehow managed to wiggle out of her dress and onto his lap, and one of her small, deadly hands reached for his cock.

 

Her grip was light, teasing, putting a lie to his belief that  _ anything _ would set him off, and he groaned into her mouth.

 

“Did you need something?” she asked, panting, kissing his cheek and his jaw, and then nipping at his earlobe. “A favor, perhaps?”

 

“God, you’re perfect,” he growled, and she laughed, low and soft and intimate in a way that made Bucky shiver. 

 

Natasha reached past him, groped for the condom and then tore it open.

 

Bucky held himself still as she rolled it down his length, let her torture him with a few firm, bordering-on-painful strokes that were exactly what he liked best.

 

And then Natasha climbed onto him, smirking at him and holding Bucky’s gaze as she enveloped his cock in the tight, wet heat of her body, and Bucky tried to just hold on.

 

He let her set the pace. He always, in bed, at work, let her take point. Bucky trusted his own instincts since they had - misstep in Afghanistan aside - kept him alive this long. But for Natasha, he willingly surrendered himself to her lead. Bucky was fairly certain he would follow her anywhere. 

 

If she wanted to set the pace, if she wanted to ride him slow and filthy with that glint in her eyes that was somewhere between possessive and mean, Bucky was happy to let it happen.

 

_ So _ damn happy to let it happen.

 

He didn’t last long, which he would have cared about if it had seemed like Natasha was on her way to a second orgasm, but she clearly wasn’t, so Bucky let himself go.

 

He thrust up in counterpoint to every downward slide of Natasha’s body around him, and soon he was breathless, one hand in her hair, mouth open against her neck, as pressure and heat built inside of him and then expanded until it exploded in a climax that had him swearing and squeezing his eyes closed.

 

Natasha kept moving, soft rolls of her hips that had Bucky shuddering and curling his arms around her strong, narrow back in an effort to hold her still.

 

She laughed at him, kissed his temple, and took pity on him by pushing him flat onto his back and then climbing off of him, and then getting off of the bed entirely.

 

“I hate civilians,” Bucky told her later that night, after they had cleaned up and Bucky was trying to figure out if this was one of those times she wanted him to leave after sex or stay.

 

“I think Sam set us up,” Natasha replied, and then grabbed Bucky’s arm and hauled it around her waist.

 

Stay, then.

 

Bucky let himself settle back against her pillows. They were insanely comfortable. Far more so than his own, but she had removed the labels and refused to tell him where she bought them.

 

“Oh, but Barbara invited me to go to yoga with her Monday night,” Natasha said, voice indicating she was already half-asleep.

 

“Yoga? You’re going to go to a yoga class?” He tried to picture it.

 

It wasn’t that Natasha wasn’t flexible - she was. Brutally so. But the thought of her in a  _ class _ , with a bunch of  _ civilians _ , going through stretching and breathing exercises, was difficult to imagine.

 

“Mm. You’re coming with me.”

 

“What? No.”

 

“Yes. Now shut up. I’m trying to sleep.”

 

“Where do you keep your knitting needles? I need to stab myself,” Bucky grumbled.

 

“Second drawer on the left in my desk. Don’t use the wooden ones - they aren’t as sharp, and they’re more difficult to clean.”

 


	4. OH! Is Clint Barton in this fic after all?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, finally, a wild Clint appears.
> 
> \----  
> \----  
> \----

As predicted,  _ Alpha Team _ , as Natasha and Bucky had taken to calling Brock Rumlow and Jack Rollins after doing a ten-day advanced certs course with them in Switzerland two years ago when they just barely kept themselves from murdering the two men who seemed to function purely on testosterone, fucked up the Dragan case. Fucked it up to the point that three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were injured, Rumlow and Rollins unfortunately not among them, and Dragan and his top lieutenants had gone to ground.

 

It wasn’t a great start to the week, walking into the Triskelion and hearing about it when Bucky went to the coffee cart on the third floor.

 

The fact that the  _ rest _ of his day was spent buried in bullshit paperwork, while Natasha had somehow managed to get herself assigned to do trainee evaluations on the gun range despite it not  _ technically _ being desk work, meant that by five, Bucky was in a foul mood. 

 

It wasn’t greatly improved when Natasha showed up at his desk and dropped a shopping bag onto it.

 

“What the hell is this?” he asked her, looking inside at black… leggings?

 

“For you. For our yoga class.” She gave him a saccharine smile that not even  _ she _ could make look sincere.

 

Bucky glared at her.

 

“You were being serious about that?”

 

She nodded, and Bucky sighed and continued to pick through the bag.

 

Natasha had bought him  _ shoes _ .

 

“I thought you did yoga barefoot.”

 

“Sure, and if you want to walk into the studio in leggings, a tank and your dress shoes, then you aren’t walking in with me.”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes, but she had a point, and he was vain enough and self-aware enough to know that he would hate having to wear his dress shoes with work-out clothes.

 

He gave Natasha’s own attire - a black button-up shirt and black pencil skirt - a pointed look.

 

She hefted another shopping bag and smirked.

 

“We can change in the lobby bathroom.”

 

Bucky sighed.

 

She nudged him with the toe of one very dangerous-looking shoe.

 

“Come on, loser. We can go pick a fight with some neo-Nazis I saw lurking around Montrose afterwards.”

 

Bucky perked up at that. Punching Nazis was always a good way to end a day.

 

He logged off his computer, picked up his shopping bag, and followed Natasha down the hall and to the elevators.

 

Bucky had to assume it wasn’t coincidence when Phil stepped into their elevator just before the doors closed.

 

He offered the both of them a smile.

 

“How are things going?” he asked them.

 

During their mandated ‘desk detention’, as Steve was now calling it, Phil was spending his time globe-trotting and doing what Bucky had to assume were surprise assessment tests on the S.H.I.E.L.D. STRIKE teams positioned around the globe. This was, actually, the first time Bucky had seen him since he gave them their marching orders.

 

“Great,” Bucky smiled back. “Natasha stabbed a Russian mob enforcer.”

 

“Bucky threw himself between a violent criminal and a mugging victim,” Natasha chimed in.

 

Phil sighed.

 

“Yes, clearly you two have taken our talk to heart.”

 

Natasha indicated the shopping bags both she and Bucky held.

 

“We’re on our way to a yoga class.”

 

“Is it Yoga for Assassins?” Phil muttered.

 

Bucky snorted a laugh.

 

“No, they were all booked up. But we’re going to a Spinning for Bike Pursuit Training class on Thursday.”

 

Natasha nodded in agreement.

 

When Bucky and Natasha got off at the lobby, Phil stayed in the elevator.

 

“ _ Try _ to be civilians, will you?” he suggested as the doors closed on him.

 

“We are,” Bucky grumbled.

 

“No, we aren’t.”

 

“We’re pretending like we’re trying.”

 

“A little.”

 

“Sure. But that’s more than we used to do.”

 

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue further.

 

They split up to go into the bathrooms and change.

 

The black pants that Bucky had suspected were leggings were, in fact, leggings. They molded to his skin from hip to ankle, and they looked  _ obscene _ on his thighs. 

 

His hopes that the shirt would be loose enough to at least cover some of his crotch were dashed as soon as he felt the stretch of the fabric.

 

Sure enough, the black tank was just as tight and form-fitting as the pants.

 

With a sigh, Bucky pulled on the black running shoes that Natasha had also provided.

 

At least everything was black.

 

He stuffed his work clothes into the shopping bag, grateful that the yoga pant-leggings at least had a pocket on the thigh for his phone, and walked back to the lobby to wait for Natasha.

 

Natasha’s attire was also all black, and even though it was just as form-fitting as Bucky’s, it left a  _ lot _ less to the imagination.

 

Her black leggings were entirely mesh from mid-thigh down, and her fitted tank top ended at her midriff in a series of complicated straps that almost made the outfit look like bondage gear.

 

She had pulled her hair into a  _ very _ high ponytail, and Bucky had to put in effort to look away from it.

 

“Ready?” she asked him.

 

Bucky jerked his gaze away from the sway of her hair.

 

“Yep. Cute hair.”

 

She smirked at him and held out a hair tie.

 

“You too,” she said.

 

Bucky groaned.

 

“Really?”

 

“You don’t want your hair getting in your face while you’re holding Downward Dog, do you?”

 

Bucky glared at her, but obligingly swept his hair back into a bun - not anywhere near as high on his head as her ridiculous ponytail.

 

“Happy?” he asked her.

 

“Not even close.”

 

_ Amen _ , he thought but didn’t say as he followed her out of the building.

 

Not surprisingly, not a single agent would meet their eyes as they stalked past.

 

Traffic was, as usual, a nightmare, and as a result, they arrived at the yoga studio with only ten minutes before the class began.

 

_ Bodyworks _ , the place was called, apparently offered Yoga, Tai Chi, Boxing, Pilates, Zumba and self-defense classes. It was in a renovated two-storey brick warehouse in what was just  _ barely _ still Georgetown, and Bucky was surprised to walk in and see both how big the place was and how packed.

 

The lobby was open to the second storey, showing off skylights in the ceiling and the wrap-around second-storey walkway with glass doors and walls that undoubtedly led to classrooms. The walls of the first floor were the same, view obstructed by two different wide staircases, but the center of the room remained largely open except for low couches, benches, and upholstered shapes of different sizes.

 

The place was a riot of colors - not just the brick walls that were painted in a multitude of colors - but all of the  _ people _ in the place. They were all in bright colors, they were laughing and talking and  _ loud, _ and Bucky didn’t think he had ever felt more out of place in his entire life.

 

Beside him, Natasha’s eyes were narrowed, and Bucky would bet his entire salary that she felt exactly the same.

 

“I hate civilians,” she muttered.

 

Bucky nodded in agreement.

 

A young, pink-haired girl in eye-melting lime green leggings and a bright blue crop top with the  _ Bodyworks _ name and logo across the front, walked up to them with a smile practically splitting her face.

 

“Hey, newbies! Welcome to  _ Bodyworks _ !”

 

Natasha glared at her.

 

Bucky wondered if the kid was high. Or brainwashed.

 

“So, are you two shopping around for a  _ great _ studio to meet new people and get in touch with your core or-”

 

“Barbara invited us to the 6:30 yoga class,” Natasha thankfully interrupted the girl.

 

The girl either didn’t pick up on Natasha’s murder voice or willfully chose to put her own life at risk.

 

“Awesome! Barbara Gray or Barbara Cohn? They’re both such great gals. I’m just thrilled one of them invited her friends to join us tonight!”

 

Bucky wondered if this was some kind of cult. 

 

Jesus  _ fuck, _ were they about to get handed kool-aid and made into sister-wives?

 

Natasha paused for just a moment too long, probably not long enough for the human fascilime to notice, but long enough for Bucky.

 

She had no idea which Barbara it was.

 

“Cohn,” Natasha said smoothly after Bucky stepped on her foot.

 

“Oh,  _ super _ ! So that’s the beginner class. It’s right there in the purple room, of course. Did you two need to borrow yoga mats?”

 

Bucky needed to borrow a bottle of Everclear.

 

“Yes, please,” Natasha managed a tight smile.

 

“Not a problem - and, since you two are  _ guests _ tonight, let me give you some complimentary water and towels!”

 

“Don’t drink it,” Bucky whispered into Natasha’s ear as they both accepted bottles of water from the kid that she dug out from one of the upholstered shapes. “Soylent green is people.”

 

Towels came from another shape, and two bright blue mats from another.

 

Laden with towles, poisoned water and yoga mats, Bucky and Natasha dutifully followed the pink-haired monster towards the purple room, cleverly named because the section of the wall around the door and glass wall were painted with splotches of bright purple paint.

 

“Here you two go! Enjoy yourselves!”

 

Bucky and Natasha looked into the room, which was already mostly full - Bucky counted at least eighteen people already in the room on a rainbow assortment of mats, all stretching.

 

“We can still leave,” Bucky told Natasha.

 

“Phil would know,” she countered.

 

And fuck. She was right.

 

They sighed in unison, and stepped into the room and toed off their shoes and socks, putting them in the wall of cubbies beside everyone else’s.

 

The only floorspace available was in the back of the room - which was just fine with Bucky. Closer to escape.

 

Bucky had no idea what Natasha had done to prepare for this op, but  _ he _ had spent the weekend watching YouTube videos to familiarize himself with basic yoga positions. Until he had gotten sidetracked by the reports from Alpha that he probably shouldn’t have access to that detailed just how fucking awful Rumlow and Rollins were at their jobs.

 

As Bucky and, beside him, Natasha stretched, he couldn’t help but notice that there appeared to be no one actually teaching the class.

 

Even though everyone was facing the same direction of the room - the wall with mirrors on it - there wasn’t anyone  _ at _ that end of the room looking back at them. There wasn’t even a mat.

 

Bucky slanted a look at Natasha.

 

“Is this some kind of self-guided bullshit?” he asked her.

 

But Natasha wasn’t paying any attention to him.

 

“I said the wrong Barbara,” she muttered, looking around the room.

 

That made Bucky smirk, and he would have commented on the fact that even  _ the _ Natasha Romanov could be wrong.

 

He would have, but he was entirely distracted from any and all higher brain function by the arrival of the most absurdly attractive man Bucky had ever seen.

 

White, with a bit of a tan and an absolute mess of short, sandy-blond hair on his head and stubble along his jaw, the man had to be six feet tall, with broad shoulders begging to be freed from a blue  _ Bodyworks _ t-shirt, a lean torso and waist, and his  _ ass _ -

 

Bucky shoved Natasha, trying to get her attention, because was she  _ seeing this? _

 

The man’s ass was a goddamn masterpiece. Or a crime. A crime against humanity. Against  _ Bucky. _ His ass was round and full, and just barely covered by fucking olive green silkies that showcased long, toned legs and-

 

Natasha shoved him back, and Bucky lost his balance.

 

The blond-haired god looked over at them, blue eyes landing on Bucky and lips curving in amusement, and  _ fuck _ . 

 

Bucky could only stare back at him.

 

“Hey, sorry I’m running late!” the god said loudly, abruptly turning his attention away from Bucky’s idiotic self. “Beltway was a nightmare and I’m a disaster, same old, same old.”

 

The god made his way to the front of the room, spread a yoga mat onto the floor, set down a towel and bottle of water to the side of it, and then pulled off his fucking shirt.

 

His abs had to be fake.

 

There was no fucking way this guy was real.

 

“Maybe we should drink the water,” Natasha muttered beside him.

 

Bucky had to nod in agreement.

 

_ Fuck _ .

 

There were freckles on the guy’s shoulders and upper arms and his back, shown off in painfully exquisite detail in the mirror behind him.

 

_ Fuck _ .

 

“I see we’ve got some newcomers joining us tonight,” the god waved towards Bucky and Natasha.

 

Bucky waved back.

 

Natasha gaped at him.

 

Bucky wanted to  _ die _ .

 

“So, I’m Clint,” the god said, “and welcome to our beginner’s yoga class. All of us are just here to have fun, relax, forget about whatever clusterfucks happened today, and, of course, get more flexible so we can try out more Kama Sutra positions.”

 

There were a few laughs from the other students.

 

Natasha and Bucky exchanged a glance.

 

And, okay, maybe Natasha hadn’t been enough of an idiot to  _ wave _ at Clint, but it was clear, from the flush on her cheeks and the tilt of her chin, that she was  _ just _ as in awe of the man as Bucky was.

 

“Cool, so, let’s start out with our old friend the Mountain Pose.”

 

Around them, everyone rose to their feet, and Bucky was very grateful that he had done his research. He had made enough of a fool of himself already.

 

Natasha, clearly, had also prepared for this op.

 

“Good, good,” Clint said from the front of the room, already in the pose that most of the room tried to copy. “So, feet together and press down through all of your toes and spread them open. Use your quads and lift your knees and your thighs. Pull in your abs and lift your chest and press your shoulders down. Open out your chest and keep your palms against your legs. Good. Good stuff.”

 

Somehow, Clint’s voice managed to sound soothing and amused - as if he was in on some joke, his gentle drawl inviting all of them to share it with him. 

 

It really wasn’t fair that the guy  _ looked _ like that and got to sound like that too.

 

“Great, now imagine a line from the ceiling to the top of your head, holding you in place. Great, great. Now breathe in. Hold it, let it really engage your diaphragm. Then let it out. Awesome. Let’s do that another nine times.”

 

Instead of holding the pose himself, Clint started to walk through the crowded mats of the students.

 

He paused every few people, nodding, smiling, using hand gestures or gentle touches to correct postures, speaking softly in clear encouragement.

 

Beside Bucky, Natasha dropped her shoulder, for once in her entire fucking life standing without perfect posture.

 

Clint arrived at her side as if summoned by the bat signal.

 

“Hey, thanks for joining us tonight…”

 

“Natasha,” she gave Clint her real name.

 

“Natasha,” Clint repeated with a grin. “You’ve got really great control of your lower body, but your right shoulder isn’t quite parallel to the floor. Any injuries or pain, or anything I should know about before we work on this?”

 

“No,” Natasha lied. Well, maybe not a  _ real _ lie, because her injuries and pain didn’t seem to really keep her from doing anything she wanted or needed to do. 

 

“Mm,” Clint hummed, and Bucky wondered if he was staring at the crooked silver knife scar just above her right clavicle, neatly bisected by her tank strap. “Well, cool. Are you a hands-on or a hands-off type?”

 

“Hands-on,” Natasha responded after a moment’s consideration.

 

“Okay, then, mind if I…?” Clint held out his palms, waggled his fingers playfully.

 

Natasha nodded.

 

Clint, standing to Natasha’s side, pressed his right hand to the front of her shoulder and his left to the back.

 

“So, let’s breathe in and try to expand our chests - push out and  _ up _ and also kinda down at the same time.”

 

“Contradictory,” Natasha muttered.

 

Clint huffed a laugh.

 

“Yep. All the best things are.”

 

His grin should be outlawed in the Geneva Conventions. It was slightly lopsided, as if the left side of his face was trying to be more serious, and his blue eyes were alight with humor and life.

 

“Good. Awesome. Okay.” Clint moved his hands away from Natasha. “Breathe again. Good. Feel the difference?”

 

Natasha nodded, and Clint winked at her. He turned his head to the side, and Bucky caught sight of purple and black plastic curved into his ears. BTEs?

 

“Great stuff.”

 

Clint moved away, circling behind Bucky.

 

“Looking good,” Clint said as he came around Bucky’s left side. “What’s your name?”

 

“James - Bucky.”

 

“Good to have you here, James Bucky. Nice form.”

 

Clint walked back to the front of the room, giving Bucky a great view of his ass.

 

“James Bucky?” Natasha taunted him.

 

Bucky spared her a single, sharp look.

 

“You’ve never needed help standing straight in your  _ life _ . I’ve seen you bleeding out and still stand at parade rest.”

 

Natasha just smirked.

 

“Jealous you didn’t think of it?”

 

And yeah. He was. Of course he was.

 

Because now if  _ he _ pulled the ‘oh help me, I can’t stand up fucking straight’ card, Clint would undoubtedly know he was faking it.

 

“Okay, let’s all relax,” Clint said as he walked back to the front of the room. “Take in some nice deep breaths. Let’s put today behind us, huh? We got through it, and that’s all that counts. Day’s done, now it’s the night and it’s time to relax. Yeah? Yeah. Alright, Downward Facing Dog next.”

 

Bucky stayed standing after everyone else dropped down to all fours.

 

Natasha glared up at him.

 

“I’m observing the technique,” he told her.

 

She rolled her eyes but left him alone.

 

Clint, on his hands and knees, started to give instructions and move his own body with them.

 

“Wrists under shoulders and knees under hips everyone. Now, tuck under your toes and lift your hips up and up and push back towards your heels. If you’re feeling tight, then don’t push it, keep your knees bent. But if you’re feeling good and loose, straighten your legs out. Good. Now, press your palms down and rotate your elbows towards each other. Think about your abs pulling up to your spine, and use your legs to keep this angle. Good. Now breathe in. Hold it. Let it out. Awesome. Let’s go for nine more, and then rest on our knees.”

 

Bucky made himself drop to the floor just as Clint stood up, barely avoiding being caught staring at the man’s ass in the mirror.

 

He listened as Clint moved around the room, and this time, he realized that Clint was stopping by a  _ lot _ of people, and that a fair number of them appeared to need Clint’s assistance.

 

Over the course of the next eight poses, it kept happening, and by the time they adopted one of the last poses of the night, the Child’s Pose, Bucky was actually feeling a little smug. He was the  _ only _ person that Clint hadn’t had to correct. The only one that Clint just walked past and said ‘good stuff’ with his proud little lopsided grin before moving on.

 

_ Take that _ , he thought to himself smugly as Natasha realized the same thing he did - that most of the other eighteen students were pulling her same trick of “needing” help when they probably really didn’t. 

 

It wasn’t until Clint coaxed all of them into the last pose, the Corpse Pose, that Bucky realized that  _ Clint _ knew which people actually needed his help and which didn’t.

 

Bucky watched Clint, saw that he went to an elderly woman first to help her ease down, then to a pregnant woman and knelt beside her for several breaths, then to a man with some wicked scarring on his right leg. And  _ then _ Clint helped the two people who really thought they could get away with asking for it when the pose was to basically lay down on their backs.

 

Once everyone was in the right position, Clint walked back to the front of the room and adopted the same.

 

“Okay, so here we all are, relaxed and sore and knowing we’re about to leave, and starting to think about all of the crap we gotta do when we get home. But let’s put that off for a few more minutes,” Clint suggested. “Let’s close our eyes, let’s breathe. Let’s relax and just feel. Feel all this energy around you - feel your body and let it talk to you. Just sink into yourself and  _ be _ .”

 

Bucky kind of expected more talking. Clint had kept up his gentle banter and coaxing instructions through most of the poses, but for this one, he stopped after that initial instruction.

 

Beside Bucky, Natasha shifted her shoulders, and Bucky became aware of a pressing need to scratch at his own nose.

 

They were really just supposed to  _ lay here _ ? And do what - nap?

 

He thought about Clint’s words - about energy and sinking into himself, and couldn’t help but scowl.

 

The yoga class hadn’t been bad, actually. Bucky hesitated to say he  _ enjoyed _ it, but of all the civilian bullshit he had tried in the last ten days, this was by far the least painful. And his body  _ did _ feel good. Not as good as after a good sparring match with Natasha, or challenging her on the obstacle course. But… maybe he felt more connected with his muscles. 

 

And his itchy fucking nose.

 

He really wanted to scratch it.

 

He  _ needed _ to scratch it.

 

Bucky gave in and rubbed at his nose, and then put his arm back down.

 

Natasha huffed an amused breath beside him.

 

“I hate you,” he whispered.

 

“You love me,” she muttered back.

 

Bucky had no idea how long they laid there -  _ too long _ \- before Clint spoke up again.

 

“Okay, slowly open your eyes,” Clint’s voice was almost a sigh. “And let’s blink and settle and stretch - up and out - and sit up. Keep it slow. We’re in no rush.”

 

Bucky followed the instructions. Not the ‘keep it slow’ one - though neither did Natasha - and he sat up.

 

Around them, everyone else was moving much slower, bodies looking more liquid than bone, and Bucky felt… jealous?

 

Fuck.

 

He did.

 

He was jealous of civilians.

 

They had it - whatever Clint had told them to do, the civilians had  _ done _ .

 

While Bucky - and Natasha - had failed.

 

Beside him, Natasha was scowling slightly, clearly having come to the same conclusion.

 

At the front of the room, Clint was sitting cross-legged and had his palms pressed together. He looked relaxed, a little rumpled, and his damn  _ abs _ looked so glorious in every single position he put himself into. It was obscene.

 

The students had copied Clint’s posture, and Bucky and Natasha belatedly followed suit.

 

“Namaste,” everyone intoned around them.

 

Bucky and Natasha remained seated while the students rose, rolling up their mats, drinking water, wiping themselves down with their towels, thanking Clint with words and handshakes and  _ hugs _ .

 

Clint, standing at the front of the room and grinning and returning the words and the handshakes and the hugs with what looked like genuine enthusiasm on his face.

 

“I hate civilians,” Bucky concluded.

 

Beside him, Natasha nodded.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-----  
> \-----  
> \-----
> 
> I have to point out, I don't know shit about yoga. I was pretty good at it on the Wii sports thing and that board? Back when that came out like a decade ago? But otherwise... it's all just a LOT, and I mean a LOT of internet research. That doesn't mean I'm not just flat out wrong about stuff. So, sorry if I offend any yoga practitioners out there.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Bucky did the responsible thing and spent three hours looking up Clint on Melinda May’s desktop, since she was deployed to Sri Lanka for the next week and the entrance to her office was in an exploitable blindspot of the surveillance cameras.

 

Bucky didn’t think the three hours had been wasted, but when Natasha sat down across from him in the mess hall for lunch and tossed a folder onto the table between them, he realized he could have spent them better.

 

“Those Ranger panties were real,” she said, a greeting that got right down to the very serious business at hand.

 

Bucky flicked open the folder and was greeted with the same headshot of Clint in army fatigues and wearing the tan beret of an Army Ranger that he had spent too long staring dreamily at that morning.

 

“Paper trail?” he asked, flipping through the rather hefty file - Natasha had been  _ thorough, _ and there were some pictures and documents in there that Bucky hadn’t been able to find.

 

“I used Sitwell’s printer code,” Natasha shrugged, and cracked open the plastic lid of her salad. She reached over to Bucky’s salad and picked up the tomatoes that he had set aside for her.

 

Bucky, meanwhile, continued to flip through the folder.

 

Clint was Clint Barton, former Army Ranger, former  _ sniper _ , who had gone on enough special ops missions that most of his records were more redacted than not. Of course, with their security codes, both Natasha and Bucky had managed to scrounge up the un-redacted reports, and they were impressive. 

 

Almost as impressive as Clint’s ass in those damn silkies.

 

Born in Iowa, former  _ circus performer _ , he had joined the Army at seventeen and served for twelve years before getting out and moving to DC. There were no housing or employment records for him for nine months, and then he started working at  _ Bodyworks _ as a class instructor and, a month after that, started renting an apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland. His credit score was middling at best. He’d had a concealed carry permit in Maryland for the last two years. And that… was pretty much it.

 

Clint Barton post Rangers was almost entirely a mystery. 

 

Clint Barton  _ as _ a Ranger, on the other hand, was an open book. A fascinating, very well-illustrated open book. There were photographs of Clint on shooting ranges, on obstacle courses, in the gym, on the parade ground, on deployment. They guy had actually been a team member on Army ops that Bucky knew about, impressive ones that said a hell of a lot about his skills and his character. The guy had also refused at least three promotions - ending his career as a Specialist when, based on his performance, he really should have been a Sergeant. 

 

Bucky used his thumb to pull loose a photograph of Clint that featured the man in a field hospital, head and ribs bandaged, lips busted, grinning at the camera and holding up a bottle of Jack Daniels in salute.

 

Natasha leaned over to look at the photograph, and then nodded.

 

“He’s cute,” she agreed with Bucky’s unspoken assessment.

 

“Why the fuck is he a yoga teacher?” Bucky had to ask.

 

She shrugged.

 

“I’m waiting to hear back from his last CO, but I talked to a few guys he served with-”

 

“You  _ what _ ?” All Bucky had done was contact the guy’s landlord and the manager of  _ Bodyworks _ . He couldn’t believe Natasha was one-upping him like this.

 

She smirked, took a loud bite of her salad, and then continued.

 

“Anyway. At first, every single one of them swore they had no idea who I was talking about.”

 

“Probably thought he was in trouble and wanted to cover for him,” Bucky mused. It’s what he would do -  _ had _ done - if any strangers asked him about Natasha.

 

“Exactly. So then I made some vague hints about the CIA, and that got them to actually hang up on me.”

 

Bucky lifted his eyebrows.

 

“Huh.”

 

“Yeah. So then I called a doctor from that field hospital.” She tapped one perfectly manicured nail on the photograph.

 

“Shoulda called some nurses.  _ I _ called the nurses.”

 

She gave him a sweet smile.

 

“I know you did, that’s why I called a doctor. There’s no need for redundancy. Anyway, apparently Clint and the doctor - a Bruce Banner? - had a bit of a fling.”

 

“He told you that?” Bucky knew Natasha was a skilled interrogator. But still…

 

“No, he very carefully did not tell me that. No idea why or how it ended, but I don’t think it was Banner’s choice. Either way, he’s at Georgetown now, and hasn’t seen or spoken to Clint since Syria. What did your nurses say?”

 

Bucky shrugged.

 

“They remembered him. Apparently, he smuggled chocolates to them from who the hell knows where, and flirted with them - male and female nurses - like it would get him more morphine.”

 

“Probably did,” Natasha mused, and Bucky nodded in agreement.

 

“They said his unit loved him. They kept having to send them away because they kept visiting him. They also said he had a very strong dislike for authority figures.”

 

“Hm. A career soldier with an attitude towards command.”

 

“Not quite career - only twelve years, and then an honorable discharge.”

 

Maybe Clint as a Ranger was a bit of a mystery after all.

 

“So, what other classes does he teach?” Natasha asked. Because of course she already knew he had called  _ Bodyworks _ .

 

“More yoga, some advanced yoga, a self-defense class and pilates.”

 

“Self-defense class?” Natasha smirked.

 

Bucky rolled his eyes.

 

“You are the least likely person on the  _ planet _ to need a self-defense class, Natasha. Not even you can fake being that helpless.”

 

She pouted at him. Her very fake pout.

 

“I’m very good at appearing helpless,” she argued.

 

And she had a point - she was. One of her main approaches was to get her opponents to underestimate her.

 

“He was in the Rangers for twelve years - you really think he’s going to think you’re just a civilian?” Bucky asked her.

 

Natasha shrugged.

 

“It’s worth finding out, isn’t it?” Natasha speared Bucky’s last tomato and ate it. “Are you going to sign up for advanced yoga or pilates with him?”

 

“I’m thinking the advanced yoga class.”

 

She nodded thoughtfully.

 

“And we’ll keep going to the beginners yoga together?”

 

Bucky shrugged.

 

“Our cover is that you’re awful at yoga, so I’m taking the class with you as encouragement. Obviously, I’m joining the advanced yoga class because that’s where I belong. Because I, unlike  _ you _ , don’t need help standing up straight.”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes and kicked him under the table.

 

“So, are we putting money on this?” she asked him.

 

“On who gets him in bed first?”

 

She nodded.

 

“We could. Or…” A thought occurred to him.

 

“Or what?”

 

“Or we could see who dates him first.”

 

Natasha frowned.

 

“I take people out to dinner before I fuck them.”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes.

 

“No. Actual dating. Therapist-mandated dating.”

 

Natasha looked a little uneasy at the prospect.

 

“C’mon,” Bucky wheedled. “Two birds with one stone - we get to report that we are  _ engaging _ in relationships with civilians,  _ and _ one of us gets to sleep with the hot yoga guy.”

 

“What if he dates both of us? Who wins then?”

 

Bucky considered that.

 

“At least three dates before sex - so whoever gets him in bed first still wins, but you’ve gotta put in the time first.”

 

Natasha scowled.

 

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little romance?” Bucky smirked.

 

She twirled the plastic fork in her hand threateningly, and Bucky found himself edging his hands away from her as he contemplated whether or not the plastic was strong enough to shear through bone if she stabbed him with it.

 

“Four dates,” she decided. “No need to rush things, James.”

 

The smile she gave him was the same one she usually gave to people she was about to shoot.

 

“Four dates,” he agreed. “Good luck.”


	6. Chapter 6

 

Sam had allowed Steve to roast the chicken.

 

It was, at least, edible.

 

But that was all Bucky could say for it.

 

He glared at Sam as he ate it.

 

Sam grinned back.

 

Asshole.

 

“So,” Steve smiled brightly, pleased with himself because even though the chicken tasted like  _ nothing _ \- and how had he managed to make the damn thing so bland when Sam Wilson had been the one to teach him that there were more ways to cook than just boiling? - it was cooked. “How did you two fuck up being normal this week?”

 

Bucky swiveled his glare to Steve. Steve’s grin grew even more obnoxious.

 

Sam held out the bottle of wine towards Natasha, who was uncharacteristically sticking to water.

 

“No thanks,” she said, and now  _ she _ was grinning at Bucky too. “I’ve got a self-defense class to go to later tonight.”

 

“I thought Coulson banned you from the campus unless it was during normal work hours,” Steve pointed out.

 

“Oh, it’s not a S.H.I.E.L.D. thing. James and I took a yoga class at a gym last week, and I’m going back for the self-defense class tonight.”

 

“To teach it?” Sam asked.

 

Bucky snorted in amusement when Natasha smirked.

 

“No, I’m taking it from one of the instructors.”

 

“Wait,” Steve held up a hand. “You - the woman who interrupted last year’s hand-to-hand demonstration from that Navy SEAL by literally kicking his ass in front of an entire room of agents.  _ You _ are going to take a civilian self-defense class. From  _ who _ ?”

 

Bucky, who wasn’t going to the self-defense class even though he had thought about crashing it, poured himself another class of wine. Maybe if he was drunk enough, he could  _ imagine _ the chicken had flavor?

 

“The same guy who taught the yoga class. He’s an excellent instructor. Isn’t he, James?”

 

Bucky gamely nodded.

 

“Especially when he takes his shirt off. Very easy to focus on.”

 

“Oh, come on. You two are making this one of your weird sex games, aren’t you?” Sam groaned. He wiped his hands down his face. “You two - you two seriously cannot be normal humans at  _ all, _ can you?”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bucky argued. “What could be  _ more _ normal than going to yoga classes? We’re just normal civilians taking normal civilian classes from another normal civilian.”

 

Sam glared at him and crossed his arms over his chest.

 

“Alright. Fine. I’ll bite. What’s his DOB?”

 

“No clue,” Bucky lied. 

 

“Uh-huh. Social security number?” Sam directed the question towards Natasha.

 

She took a sip from her glass of water.

 

“What military branch was he in?” Steve asked.

 

Bucky glared at him, and Steve smirked back.

 

“Really?” Sam sighed. “You two are stalking a Vet? You can’t keep your freaky shit in the spy world? You gotta go after my guys now?”

 

“I don’t know what freaky shit you’re talking about, Sam,” Bucky insisted.

 

“Oh. Really? You want to go there? You want to go down memory lane? Should I set up the powerpoint?”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes.

 

“You make it sound like we have a sex dungeon and kidnap victims to stock it.”

 

“Then how would  _ you _ describe New Year’s Eve last year? With Sharon Carter and the two of you playing  _ rocks-paper-scissors _ over who got to make the first move on her?”

 

“Sharon Carter was  _ not _ a victim,” Bucky had to point out. “Those Carter women are - the opposite of victims.”

 

Natasha nodded in agreement, a nostalgic glint to her eye.

 

“You’re thinking about it right now - aren’t you? You’re both thinking about the fact that you took  _ turns _ screwing her in our guest room on the quilt my grandmother made.”

 

“The quilt wasn’t really what I was thinking about,” Natasha mused.

 

“Oh, my god. Steve - Steve. These two are your problem. Fix them. Please.”

 

“Guys,” Steve sighed, putting on his best ‘I am a respectable person’ voice. “Sam’s right. You can’t just treat everything like a game or a mission. People aren’t operational objectives.”

 

Bucky bit down on his bottom lip to keep from laughing.

 

He was going to need to put that on a shirt. 

 

And give it to Steve for Christmas.

 

“We’re taking this very seriously,” Natasha said. “We’ve agreed on four dates before sex. Which means this will be the longest relationship James has had since you, Steve.”

 

Sam hit his head on the table.

 

“Oh my god. Why? Why is this my life? Why are these my friends?”

 

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Bucky said, and toasted Sam with his wine glass, “for teaching Steve how to do that thing with his tongue.”

 

“Out!” Sam didn’t bother to lift his head from the table, just pointed towards the door. “Both of you. Out now.”

 

Steve shook his head at Bucky, trying to look disappointed but clearly also fighting back laughter.

 

They left, though, because Bucky had only actually pushed Sam over the edge into a screaming match once before, and he wasn’t all that eager to do it again. 

 

Natasha drove him home before going to her class.

 

“Let me know how it goes,” Bucky instructed as he got out of her car - a bright red Mini Cooper this month - in front of his apartment building. 

 

She waved in response before pulling away and merging into traffic.

 

Bucky checked his mail and then went up to his apartment and settled in with hummus, carrot sticks and the third book of the  _ Hunger Games _ trilogy. He hated how invested he was in the damn books, and he was going to resent Sam introducing him to them for the rest of their lives. Damnit.  _ This _ was the set-up. Not the stupid book club - that was just an added bonus. Forcing Bucky to read that stupid book, and knowing that he would buy the sequel and then the third book because Bucky couldn’t just not know how it ended.

 

Sam Wilson was an asshole.

 

It was just after ten, and Bucky was scowling his way through the last fifty pages of the book, when he heard a key turning in the lock on his front door.

 

Aside from the super, only two other people had a key - Steve (so maybe Sam) and Natasha. 

 

But that didn’t mean that someone hadn’t murdered the super and stolen his key.

 

Casually, Bucky dropped the book onto the coffee table and reached under his couch for the gun he kept taped to the underside and waited.

 

The door opened and Natasha walked in, gaze sweeping around the apartment before zeroing in on Bucky on the couch, and slammed the door shut behind her.

 

She looked furious… and aroused?

 

Bucky took in the flush of her cheeks, the strands of hair that had come free from her once-again too-high ponytail. She was in all-pink tonight - even her damn sneakers. It was, at least, a soft, rose color that somehow complemented her coloring and hair. It still looked like bondage gear - mesh and straps and a lot of creamy skin on display.

 

“Go get a condom. And get rid of your clothes.”

 

Bucky raised his eyebrows at her tone. 

 

Definitely furious.

 

“ _ Now _ ,” she snapped when he didn’t move.

 

Bucky let go of the gun, got off the couch, and went into his bedroom to follow her orders.

 

He dutifully grabbed the condom, shucked out of his work clothes, briefs and socks, and walked back into the living room to see Natasha naked and leaning against the back of the couch.

 

“Class that good?” he asked with a smirk.

 

She glared at him over her shoulder.

 

“He  _ knew _ , James.”

 

She didn’t need to clarify what or who.

 

Who had to be Clint.

 

And  _ what _ he knew had to be that Natasha wasn’t a helpless civilian.

 

Bucky felt his smirk grow.

 

“Oh, yeah?” He walked up to her back and ran his right hand down the sharp line of her spine, and set the condom down on the couch beside her hand. Her skin was warm, a little damp, and he bent his head to lick the base of her neck.

 

She was sweaty. 

 

“Clint give you a workout?” Bucky teased.

 

Natasha made a sound that could have been pleasure or frustration, and Bucky nipped at the skin under his mouth.

 

She arched back into him, standing up to press her back to his front, and Bucky moved his hands to cup her breasts. Her nipples were already hard.

 

“Jesus. He really worked you up, didn’t he?”

 

“Stop talking. Just,” she reached between them for Bucky’s half-hard cock and started to stroke him. “Just be quiet and fuck me.”

 

Bucky laughed.

 

“You’re pretending he’s the one fucking you, aren’t you?” It made sense, now that he thought about it. They both liked to mix things up in bed - or out of bed, as the case might be - but in general, Natasha preferred to be face-to-face with him. The fact that she was positioning herself facing  _ away _ from Bucky was a dead giveaway.

 

“It’s a little hard to do when you won’t  _ shut up _ ,” she snapped.

 

“Jesus, Natasha.” Bucky bent his head and traced the shell of her right ear with his tongue. “If you want me to shut up,” he whispered, “then you’re going to have to tell me what he did to get you all hot and bothered.”

 

She made that same frustrated sound again and rocked her hips back against his.

 

“Was he wearing those fucking panties?” Bucky asked, trying to picture it. “Shirtless and in those damn panties, and you practically naked in your flesh-toned clothes?”

 

Natasha sucked in an unsteady breath, and Bucky stopped teasing her right breast and instead moved his hand down between her legs.

 

“You’re so  _ wet _ , Natasha.” Bucky was still talking into her ear, still teasing her left breast with one hand, while he rubbed his thumb against her clit and she shivered against him.

 

“Shut up,” she hissed, sounding desperate.

 

“I will if you tell me what I want to know. What did he do to you?” Bucky pressed his index finger into her vagina and bit her earlobe at the same time, and Natasha gasped.

 

“Not the panties,” she mumbled, abandoning Bucky’s hard cock to reach for the condom. “Sweatpants that were so thin - he couldn’t have been wearing anything under them.”

 

“Mm. Bet his ass looked amazing.”

 

“He kept his shirt on. That stupid blue one.”

 

“Makes sense. Can’t demonstrate self-defense when everyone in the class just wants to go to their knees and lick his abs.”

 

Natasha gave a shaky laugh, and shoved the condom into Bucky’s left hand.

 

He left her go, giving her clit one last firm stroke before stepping away, and opened the condom wrapper.

 

“He demonstrated how to break free of a chokehold,” Natasha said, bending back over the couch and fingering herself while Bucky rolled on the condom. 

 

“And you did it a different way?” Bucky guessed.

 

He stepped back up, curled around her to press his chest to her back, and used his right hand to rub his dick through her folds.

 

Natasha squirmed, trying to angle herself and force Bucky’s cock inside her.

 

“No. I did it his way. But he,  _ fuck _ ,” she sighed when Bucky finally slid into her.

 

“He what?” Bucky coaxed, letting himself push deep into her and then slowly pull out.

 

“He asked for a volunteer.”

 

“And you, Natasha Romanov who always has to be the  _ best _ , volunteered.”

 

Natasha braced herself against the couch and pushed back against Bucky, trying to change the pace. Bucky stood back up, planted his feet and put his hands on her hips so that he could remain in control.

 

“I didn’t,” she groaned. “He picked me because there was no one else. I- James,  _ please _ .”

 

She didn’t ask nicely for anything, really. And of the two of them, it was Bucky usually saying  _ please _ during sex.

 

He wanted to torment her, wanted to keep it slow and drag this out and hear the whole story while he fucked her and she thought about Clint, but when she said please like that, he was helpless not to give her what she wanted.

 

Bucky altered his rhythm, changed the slow, smooth strokes to sharp, deep thrusts that rendered both of them breathless except for the obscene, pleading noises that fell from Natasha’s lips as she imagined someone else standing behind her.

 

It shouldn’t be hot - definitely shouldn’t turn Bucky on that his partner with benefits of eight years had told him to shut up and fuck her while she thought about another man - but it  _ was _ . 

 

Bucky started to finger her again, and Natasha’s grip on the couch turned white-knuckled.

 

When she came, she cried out and clutched at his hand between her legs, keeping his fingers pressed against her, and Bucky didn’t let up. He kept fucking into her with fingers and cock until she was trembling against him and he had to use his other hand to help support her weight.

 

“Natasha, if he could see you right now, bent over like this, desperate for his cock...”

 

She whined, actually  _ whined _ . Bucky could count the number of times Natasha had ever been this worked up on one hand. He was actually a little jealous. 

 

Usually, she wasn’t like this unless they’d just survived a drive-by or jumped off a building or blown something up. But one self-defense class, and she was soaking wet and  _ whining _ for Clint?

 

Natasha came again, and Bucky pulled her up enough to be able to kiss her, to swallow her moan and taste her as she fell apart.

 

“Stop,” she panted against his lips. “Stop. I- No more.”

 

“Oh, no.” Bucky sucked at her lips, bit them until she was whining again. “You want me to stop, you know what to say. But I’m going to fuck you until you tell me, Natasha. Tell me what happened to make you so fucking  _ desperate _ .”

 

Natasha groaned, but she didn’t use her safeword, didn’t even make an attempt to push away his hand or his cock, so Bucky kept fucking her.

 

He did, however, slow down. Because if he didn’t, then  _ he _ was going to come.

 

“Stronghold,” she repeated. “He told me to show- to show him how I’d get out of it.”

 

Bucky had seen Natasha use at least eight different ways to get out of a stronghold.

 

“I- I pushed against him and tried to knee him in the groin.”

 

_ That _ wasn’t one of the ways Bucky had seen her do it. It might be distracting enough for someone incompetent to loosen their hold, but it wasn’t going to do much against someone experienced or disciplined.

 

“And?” Bucky punctuated the question with a forceful thrust.

 

“He  _ smirked _ at me. Told me I could do better than that.”

 

Daring Natasha wasn’t always as effective as daring someone like Steve, or Bucky. But she  _ could _ be goaded into things sometimes.

 

“What’d you do?”

 

“I tripped him. And-” She trailed off and clenched around him for a third time, far less intense than the first two orgasms had been, and Bucky finally moved his hand away from her clit and instead used it to stroke her fluttering ribcage.

 

“And?”

 

She laughed, sounding breathless but a little more like herself at the same time. Less desperate, certainly less angry than she had been when she stormed into his apartment. 

 

“And he pulled me down with him and said that I was worse at faking incompetence in that class than I had been in the yoga class.”

 

Bucky could picture it now. Clint letting Natasha trip him and pulling her down, rolling her until he could speak into her ear, smirking at her as he let her know he saw right through her. 

 

Fuck. 

 

That was priceless.

 

Natasha elbowed him when he laughed, and Bucky groaned at the sharp jab of pain.

 

“There. I’ve told you what you want to know. Will you finish so I can get dressed and go home?”

 

Bucky snorted and pulled out.

 

“Don’t worry about it.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “I’m good.”

 

Natasha turned around and looked from his cock to his face and arched an eyebrow.

 

“I am,” Bucky assured her. “Getting you off while you fantasized about someone else was all I needed.”

 

She rolled her eyes.

 

“You’re an ass.”

 

“Hey, of the two of us, which one just used the other for hate sex  _ with someone else _ ?”

 

Natasha sighed.

 

“You want me to blow you?” she offered.

 

Bucky kissed her.

 

“No. But thanks. Really. I’m just going to go take a shower and picture Clint bent over my couch instead of you.”


	7. Chapter 7

The advanced yoga class was also on Monday nights, half an hour after the beginner’s yoga class ended. Clint, Bucky guessed based on the man’s class schedule, preferred working nights to mornings. Almost all of Clint’s classes were held after five, except for one class on Sunday midmorning.

 

Which was fine with Bucky. Two back-to-back classes on one night minimized his civilian interactions very nicely. And at least yoga classes didn’t encourage interaction between students. Natasha had told him more about her defense class over lunch on Thursday, including how  _ chatty _ and friendly everyone was. 

 

Bucky and Natasha didn’t do chatty. Only did friendly when they were undercover or after something. He sympathized with her, and felt smug in his decision to go the advanced yoga route.

 

After the end of the beginner’s yoga class, Bucky and Natasha lingered, letting everyone else paw Clint before, Bucky assumed, Natasha made her move.

 

Sure enough, as soon as the last student was on her way out, Natasha stood up from stretching and began to roll up her mat.

 

Bucky looked between Clint and Natasha. He was fairly certain that he wasn’t imagining a bit of tension between the two of them. Natasha hadn’t pulled any ‘help me stand up straight’ crap that lesson, but that hadn’t stopped Clint from swinging by and commenting on her stance, suggesting she let go of tension here, relax there. He did it all without touching her, hands hovering just a breath away from her skin, and Bucky could practically feel Natasha’s irritation by the end of the lesson.

 

Now, as she stalked up to the front of the room - looking more like she was about to attack Clint than ask him out - Bucky had to wonder what kind of reception she was going to get. 

 

“I wanted to thank you for the class,” Natasha told Clint.

 

Clint grinned at her.

 

“My pleasure. You did really well tonight. You and your friend still suck at the Corpse Pose, but otherwise, good work.” Clint sent a meaningful glance in Bucky’s direction.

 

And fine. Fair enough. They  _ did _ suck at that pose. But laying still and feeling at one with the universe was not something Bucky could - or even really  _ wanted _ \- to do.

 

Natasha ran a hand through her hair, tucking a loose strand from her ponytail behind her ear. Clint’s eyes followed the gesture.

 

“Listen, I think we got off on the wrong foot, last week. Can I make it up to you with coffee?”

 

Clint’s lips twitched and he titled his head to one side. There was no mistaking the invitation in Natasha’s voice. He gave Natasha a considering look, and then turned it on Bucky.

 

“What about James?” He gestured towards Bucky.

 

“James and I are friends. We share mutual interests,” Natasha shrugged. “He wouldn’t be coming along for coffee.”

 

Seeing the two of them standing together, Clint’s half-naked body - once again shirtless and wearing another pair of silkies - towering over Natasha’s slim one, was doing funny things to Bucky. Things that he probably shouldn’t dwell on until he was alone and in his shower.

 

“Sure,” Clint decided with a shrug. “I like coffee. Tomorrow? There’s a place about a block from here that doesn’t get too crowded.”

 

“JavaCup?” Natasha asked. She and Bucky had memorized the three blocks surrounding  _ Bodyworks _ because, well, they were thorough, and as agents for a secret government agency, paranoid. That was only fair.

 

“Yeah. That’s the place. Four?”

 

“I can do four.” Natasha leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Clint’s cheek before turning on her heel and walking back to Bucky.

 

Which meant she missed the wide-eyed look on Clint’s face. And the hand he lifted to his cheek to press against the spot where her lips had just been.

 

Bucky, of course, got to see both Clint’s reaction  _ and _ Natasha’s self-satisfied little smirk.

 

“Have fun in your class,” she said to him as she collected her yoga mat and bottle of water - they had brought their own.

 

“Will do,” he assured her with a smirk of his own.

 

He looked away from Natasha’s exit to see Clint watching him.

 

“You’re staying for the advanced class?” Clint asked.

 

Bucky nodded.

 

“I’m taking the beginner’s class for Natasha’s sake.” The lie didn’t feel quite as smooth and practiced now. Not in the face of Clint’s amusement.

 

“Sure,” Clint agreed. “Well, looks like you’re here first. You wanna move up or stay in the back?”

 

Bucky considered it, but decided to keep his spot in the back, close to the exit.

 

“I’m good,” he said.

 

Clint nodded and went through a series of stretches that Bucky was pretty sure belonged only in pornography.

 

“So, what do you and Natasha do when you’re not here?” Clint asked, body pretzeled into an improbable shape that was making Bucky doubt his decision to try the advanced yoga.

 

“Insurance. We’re claims adjusters.” It was the standard line. S.H.I.E.L.D.  _ existed _ \- there was no way to keep an agency that large entirely off the books - but all field agents were issued office space and business cards for an insurance agency near DuPont Circle.

 

“Ah. That why you two are so tense?” Clint was grinning as he said it, teasing, maybe even taunting.

 

He was an interesting guy. Former special forces - now yoga teacher. Still sharp enough to know Natasha wasn’t without skills. Maybe sharp enough to know that the insurance front was exactly that. But he seemed, for all that his blue eyes were very clear and very focused, incredibly laid-back.

 

“Probably,” Bucky agreed. He forced himself to stretch. Based on Clint’s contortions, he was sure he was going to need it.

 

The advanced yoga class was just as packed as the beginner’s class, and by the time it started at eight, Bucky found himself flanked on both sides by lithe, lanky women in leggings and sports bras.

 

“Hey, everyone,” Clint greeted the class. “I’m gonna start off with the same spiel I always do. Advanced yoga isn’t a real thing. Everyone has a unique body, with unique limits and unique goals. So, we’re all here tonight because we’re on the same page about pushing our bodies and our limits.  _ But _ if you don’t feel comfortable doing a pose, let’s find something that works better for you. Yoga isn’t a race, and it’s not a competition. It’s a chance for you to stop thinking about all of the garbage out there, and focus on you and your body. So, that said, let’s start off with our old friend the Mountain Pose.”

 

It was a little comforting that Clint started every class - advanced or beginner - with the same pose. It eased some of Bucky’s doubts.

 

Unlike the beginner class, no one required Clint’s help with this pose, and instead he wandered the mats and whispered greetings to each of the students before winking at Bucky and then making his way back to the front of the room.

 

“Great. Good stuff. So, let’s ease into our practice tonight with the Lord of the Dance pose. So, let’s get ourselves back into the Mountain pose. As we exhale we’re going to put our weight on our right leg and use your left hand to bring your left leg back. Push your ass down, but pull your belly up. Keep your torso on a diagonal and pull your shoulders down. If you need to use your right hand for balance, extend it out. If you’re feeling lucky, go ahead and bring your right hand up to your left to hold your foot. Once we get there, let’s hold it for a ten count and then let go. And then we’ll do the other side.”

 

Bucky managed it. Barely. And he had to hold his right hand out to keep himself stable. And his body wasn’t nearly as curved as those of the students around him.

 

Clint stopped by his side.

 

“You’re doing great,” Clint assured him. “You’d do better if you tried to  _ relax _ and enjoy yourself.”

 

Bucky spared him a glare, and Clint just grinned.

 

“Hands-on or hands-off?” Clint asked.

 

Normally, Bucky was hands-off unless the situation was a fight or sex. But, well, the whole point of this was for it to eventually lead to sex. He could consider this just extremely lengthy foreplay.

 

“Hands-on,” he said.

 

Clint nodded and moved one hand to Bucky’s left thigh.

 

“You feel that? How tight you are?”

 

Bucky forced himself to think about Phil’s disappointed look.

 

“Yeah,” he rasped.

 

“That’s where you’re holding all of that insurance tension,” Clint said, and Bucky was startled into a laugh.

 

Clint had to reach out with his other hand to help Bucky steady himself.

 

“Relax,” Clint repeated, not quite an order. Something like an invitation.

 

Bucky drew in a deep breath, held it like Clint always encouraged, and then slowly let it back out.

 

He did it again, Clint’s hand still on his thigh.

 

“Good,” Clint finally released him. “You feel the difference?”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky managed to say. “Yeah.”

 

The rest of the class passed in much the same way.

 

Torture.

 

Bucky genuinely tried. He hated failing. Hated it, and the fact that he was actually struggling at something that the civilians around him managed with, if not ease, at least  _ managed _ .

 

That Bucky lingered after the end of class had less to do with him wanting to, and everything to do with his body protesting movement.

 

Just like in the beginner’s classes, the students all stopped by the front to thank Clint personally, shaking hands or giving hugs, clearly getting in their chances to paw him before they left.

 

Finally, though, Bucky had managed to gather his stuff, put on his socks, and was pulling on his shoes when the last student left.

 

“You gonna survive?”

 

Bucky looked up to see Clint, t-shirt back on, sweatpants pulled on over his silkies and a pair of battered lavender Chucks on his feet, smirking down at him.

 

“Jury’s still out,” Bucky admitted.

 

Clint laughed and held out a hand.

 

Reluctantly, Bucky accepted it, and let the other man pull him to his feet.

 

Their chests bumped together, and Bucky was very aware of the fact that he had let it happen - and that Clint probably had as well.

 

Clint didn’t immediately let him go, and Bucky didn’t really see the point in pulling away.

 

“You want to grab a beer? Maybe give me some pointers so I don’t struggle so much next week?” Bucky suggested.

 

Clint lifted his eyebrows, but his blue eyes flicked down to Bucky’s mouth and then back to his eyes.

 

“Sure. I like beer.”

 

Bucky snorted, and finally stepped out of the other man’s personal space. It was almost the exact same line he had used with Natasha.

 

This late,  _ Bodyworks _ was mostly empty, with a few employees and fewer students loitering around the main open area. 

 

Clint waved at a few, but walked out of the gym at Bucky’s side without hesitating.

 

“So, dive bar that way,” Clint hooked a thumb over his right shoulder. “Or slightly classier dive bar that way.” He pointed behind Bucky.

 

Bucky looked across the street at the bar that looked nothing like either of the options Clint had described.

 

Clint laughed.

 

“Yeah, not really my scene,” he shrugged, and tapped his BTEs. “Too loud unless you want me to turn these off and we can just stare at each other while we drink.”

 

“Maybe not the best first date plan,” Bucky shrugged, “but staring at you for a while doesn’t sound so awful.”

 

Clint lifted one eyebrow.

 

“Jesus. You and your friend - when you two decide to go for it, you really do, huh?”

 

Bucky shrugged.

 

“You want me to be more subtle?”

 

“Nah,” Clint decided, and nudged Bucky’s shoulder, indicating the slightly classier dive bar as their destination. “More subtle isn’t the best approach with me.”

 

They walked in step towards the bar, and the weather had edged into autumn enough that there was a slight, pleasant breeze to help cool off Bucky’s overworked muscles.

 

When they reached the bar, Clint made a show of holding open the door for Bucky, and then suggested they sit on the back patio where it was quiet. Bucky followed him, pausing at the bar to order two Stellas after Clint nodded his approval.

 

It was nice, to just sit and drink a beer and actually spend a few minutes unwinding and, of course, looking at Clint.

 

Clint caught him staring, and actually folded his arms on the table and leaned closer to Bucky.

 

“You gonna be one of those fuck ‘em and move on types who drops my class after I take you home? Because I gotta be honest, I kind of need the money more than I need to get laid.”

 

Bucky, mid-sip, choked on his beer.

 

Clint smirked and took a sip of his own beer while he waited for Bucky to figure out how to breathe again.

 

“People really just sleep with you and then drop your class?”

 

“Yup. I guess they think it’d be awkward? After I’ve seen them naked?” Clint shrugged. “But bodies are bodies, you know? And in the studio, we’re all just hanging out. Everything that happens outside stays there.”

 

“Right,” Bucky agreed, even though he couldn’t imagine a possible world where  _ he _ could so easily separate his private life from his work life.

 

“But what’s  _ more _ awkward is me having to explain to the boss why my people keep dropping my class after only a few lessons. So, I’ve adopted a very upfront policy about hookups.”

 

“Have you?” Bucky had to ask. This was not at all the way he had thought this conversation would be going. He wondered, idly, if he should warn Natasha what she was in for tomorrow. 

 

“Yeah. Like I said - I need a paycheck more than a fuck. So, if you want to fuck, you’re gonna have to put on your big boy pants and keep coming to class after we hook up, deal?”

 

“I could just lie and say yes to you now, and then not show up,” Bucky pointed out.

 

“You could,” Clint agreed, voice low and lazy, eyes hot and daring.

 

Bucky forced himself to take another sip from his beer and to look away.

 

“Besides,” Bucky smirked, “I don’t want to take you home.”

 

“Oh, really? You spent all night checking out my ass because you  _ don’t _ want me?” Clint challenged.

 

“I want you,” Bucky confirmed. “But not tonight.” He rolled his right shoulder and grimaced.

 

Clint laughed.

 

“Yeah. I’ll give you a few days to recover.”

 

“How about a few dates?” Bucky suggested.

 

Clint frowned, and his eyes studied Bucky’s face as if he didn’t understand the words.

 

“What?”

 

Bucky shrugged.

 

“Let me get to know you. No need to rush anything, right?”

 

“You want to get to know me?” Clint repeated. “What? Like my favorite color and what music I listen to?”

 

“Sure. And how you feel about sunsets and beaches and hand-holding.”

 

Clint snorted in disbelief.

 

“I’m your yoga teacher,” he reminded Bucky. “I’m not where most people look when they want to go getting all romantic.”

 

“I’m not most people,” Bucky said.

 

“That’s right,” Clint agreed. “You’re an insurance claims adjuster. One of a kind. Well,” Clint smirked, “two of a kind.”

 

Bucky didn’t really want to discuss Natasha. She was going to do well enough on her own with Clint tomorrow without needing Bucky to sing her praises.

 

“So, what do you do when you’re not teaching yoga?” he asked Clint.

 

“Sometimes, I get crazy and teach self-defense classes,” Clint waggled his eyebrows. “I even teach Pilates.”

 

“Okay, but when you’re not at  _ Bodyworks _ . There are times when you’re not at that place - or in dive bars, right?”

 

Clint shrugged, and he looked, for the first time, uncomfortable.

 

“I take some college classes online. I go hiking. I work part-time at a shelter near my apartment.”

 

“Shelter?”

 

“Animal shelter. I’m, uh, I’m trying to get my degree so I can be a veterinary technician.” Clint sounded defensive, and Bucky found himself wondering just what kind of people Clint was used to talking to.

 

It wasn’t that Bucky, as a general rule, forged any deep or meaningful connection with  _ anyone _ he slept with outside of Natasha - and that had only happened because of their work and eight years of being stuck with each other - but he at least put up a pretense of being interested in someone else before taking them to bed.

 

“That something you’ve always wanted to do?” Bucky asked.

 

Clint still looked uneasy, but he shrugged.

 

“I guess? I grew up on a farm, so I was always around animals. You know, the cat would have a litter every year and every year Dad’d threaten to drown the kittens unless I found a home for ‘em all, so I got used to hiding ‘em and taking care of ‘em until they were old enough to give away or fend for themselves.”

 

Bucky, who had grown up in Brooklyn and whose only experience with a ‘farm’ had been one time in Croatia when he and Natasha had chased a terrorist through a potato field, couldn’t think of a worse way to grow up. Or a worse father.

 

Something of his horror must have shown on his face, because Clint rushed on.

 

“I mean, they were fine - he never, well - yeah. I guess I always wanted to do it. Kinda wanted to be a vet, when I was a kid, but, you know, too much school. Never really cared for school so…”

 

“So you just went right into yoga teaching out of high school?”

 

“Uh, no. Not at all.” Clint grinned. “I actually… ran away and joined the circus when I was like ten? Did that for a few years - got my G.E.D. too because the ringmaster was kinda an asshole about all of that. And then I joined the army.”

 

All of which Bucky already knew.

 

“That’s… quite a windy road to travel.”

 

“You’re tellin’ me,” Clint agreed. “One minute, I’m in a purple sequined leotard shooting flaming arrows through a pretty girl’s legs, and the next I’m gettin’ the worst haircut of my life and heading to Georgia.”

 

Where he had attended Ranger school and earned those goddamn panties. Bucky wondered if normal civilians knew about them.

 

Fuck it. He couldn’t  _ not _ comment on them.

 

“That when you started wearing silkies?” Bucky asked.

 

Clint smirked.

 

“Yeah. Once you start wearing ‘em, you never go back.” The expression on Clint’s face made it perfectly clear that he knew how irresistible his ass was in the things.

 

Bucky shook his head, but couldn’t help smirking as well.

 

“What about you?” Clint nudged his leg under the table. “You always dream of growing up to become an insurance claims adjuster?”

 

“I know it doesn’t sound glamorous.”

 

“You about to tell me that it  _ is _ ?”

 

“No. But it pays decently, I get to travel, and I work okay hours.”

 

“Mm. Yeah. Sounds thrilling. Why’d you go into it - I mean, glamorous lifestyle, decent pay and okay hours aside?”

 

Bucky shrugged.

 

“I’ve always been good at math.” It wasn’t even a lie. Bucky had learned, at a very young age, that the best lies had a bit of truth in them. “Didn’t really know what else to do, so… here I am.”

 

“And in your free time, what do you do? Aside from yoga once a week?”

 

“I work out. I read.”

 

Clint looked like he was waiting for Bucky to continue, and Bucky realized that… that was it.

 

Fuck.

 

His therapist was right. He really  _ didn’t _ have any hobbies.

 

“Wow,” Clint said into the very awkward silence.

 

“Yeah. Fuck, that’s pathetic.”

 

“Nah,” Clint waved one hand. “You could have  _ just _ said you work out. That would have been pathetic. I mean, as nice as your thighs are, you gotta live for more than leg day.”

 

Bucky snorted.

 

“Yeah. I guess so.”

 

“And Natasha - she’s your friend, so I’m assuming you spend time with her? Or is it just a work friendship?”

 

“No. She’s pretty much the only human I can stand to be around for long periods of time. Well, her and Steve.”

 

“Steve?”

 

“Another insurance agent. Also my best friend growing up.”

 

“And you two… followed each other into the insurance world? That’s beautiful.”

 

“Look, you grow up a poor kid in Brooklyn and watch your ma work three jobs, getting out and getting a decent job  _ is _ the dream. Insurance is boring as fuck, but it pays the bills.”

 

“Alright, you’re right. I’m sorry.” Clint held up his palms. “So, what do you and Natasha - or you and Steve - do for fun?”

 

Bucky thought about how to answer the question.

 

He and Natasha considered sparring fun. They considered competing for sex fun. They considered sex with each other fun. They considered terrorizing S.H.I.E.L.D. recruits fun. 

 

None of those were appropriate answers.

 

“We hang out.”

 

Clint nodded.

 

“Wow. Yeah. You insurance types - exciting stuff.”

 

Bucky had never actually been on a date before where sex wasn’t on the table. He’d never spent time talking to a civilian before… just to talk to them. Not outside of Sam or his own sisters, and he avoided talking to his sisters whenever possible. Sam too, most of the time.

 

He had never had to  _ try _ so hard. And he was crashing and burning pretty spectacularly. 

 

“I had a gerbil, growing up,” he said in desperation.

 

Clint made a ‘go on’ gesture while he emptied his beer.

 

“His name was King Charles. I don’t know why. I can’t remember. But I used to hide him in my sister’s backpack.”

 

“I don’t think this story has a happy ending,” Clint mused.

 

“No. It doesn’t. Um… sports?”

 

“Is this the same story, or a new topic you’re desperately grasping at?” Clint was grinning, his gentle teasing grin from class.

 

“New topic,” Bucky said.

 

“I like sports,” Clint said. “Baseball, football, basketball… I’ve been known to fall asleep watching golf or tennis on occasion.”

 

“Hockey?”

 

“Who the hell do you know that can sleep through hockey?”

 

Bucky smirked.

 

“No one. You a fan?”

 

“Of hockey? A sport that involves sharp things and sticks and giant dudes actively encouraged to beat each other up? Of course.”

 

“If you haven’t gotten bored with me by October, I’ve got season tickets to the Capitals.”

 

Clint shook his head.

 

“I think you’re vastly overestimating your attention span if you think you’re gonna want me around after six weeks,” he argued.

 

“Is sex with you that bad? Is that why people drop your class?”

 

Clint was shocked into a laugh.

 

“Fuck. Maybe it is! Oh, fuck me - that’s gotta be it. All this time, I figured I was just that dull to be around. Yeah. I guess so.”

 

“Really?”

 

Clint shrugged.

 

“Sure. They spend one night fucking me, tell me to give them a call… and when I do, they spend another night fucking me, and then I never hear from them again. Must be that the first night was so bad they needed a second night to confirm it really happened.”

 

Bucky snorted.

 

“That must be it. Don’t worry, I’m very patient. I’ll teach you the ropes.”

 

“Oh, fuck you.”

 

“Sure, but not on the first date.”

 

Clint grinned.

 

“Okay. I like you. I’ll give this dating thing of yours a try. But you’re paying for the beer - and I want a decent goodnight kiss. With tongue.”

 

“I think I can agree to those terms.”

* * *

* * *

 

Quick note fam:

Next Tuesday I leave for a conference, so I'll be gone Tuesday early AF in the AM until the following Sunday, so next week there will be NO update on this fic. But there will be the following Tuesday.

I'm hoping to get some spare time during the conference to work on updates for other fics as well. So sorry everyone who is sticking with me despite my ridiculously unreliable posting schedule. You all are gems.


	8. Chapter 8

Sam sighed when he opened the door.

 

“I must have missed the memo about you two losers permanently inviting yourselves to chicken night.”

 

Bucky smirked and shoved the bottle of white wine he had brought into Sam’s chest, and walked past him into the house.

 

“Steve! I need to punch something, and Natasha won’t let me hit her.”

 

Sam, and Natasha, followed him into the house. 

 

Steve poked his head out from the kitchen.

 

“What happened?” he asked.

 

Natasha groaned.

 

“Don’t tell me you let Rogers butcher dinner again, Sam.”

 

Steve narrowed his eyes at her.

 

“You are welcome to turn around and leave,” he said.

 

Natasha and Bucky exchanged looks.

 

They  _ had _ eaten worse.

 

“Did he at least put salt on it this time?” Bucky asked Sam.

 

Sam gave him a long-suffering look.

 

“Man, he put salt on it  _ last _ time. I don’t know what the fuck- He’s got like some kind of superpower to mess up everything he touches in the kitchen.”

 

Steve cleared his throat, regaining their collective attention.

 

“You can  _ all _ leave,” Steve said. “And I can enjoy the fruits of my labor alone and listen to a podcast.”

 

“A podcast?” Bucky widened his eyes. “Wow. What’s that, Steve? Natasha, you ever heard of a podcast?”

 

“No, I haven’t, James. Is that some kinky sex thing you and Steve do, Sam?”

 

Sam tried to keep a straight face under the heat of Steve’s glare.

 

“You know what? Fuck you all. Podcasts are fantastic. Free entertainment. Free learning. You know how I knew about the Gobi Desert climate shift and got those assholes from Serbia? A podcast. You know how I knew that guy in Khartoum was lying about his political motivations behind the assassination of the Kenyan president? A podcast. You know how I-”

 

“Learned how to tie my shoe?” Bucky interrupted. “A podcast.”

 

Steve brandished a knife.

 

“Babe,” Sam put himself between Steve and Bucky and Natasha, “let the children have their fun. They lead lonely, pathetic lives without love or anything good or decent. Don’t sink to their level.”

 

“My life is not pathetic,” Natasha said.

 

“Sorry. I meant Bucky. Bucky leads a lonely, pathetic life without love or anything good or decent. Natasha is just an evil, evil Russian superspy who’s messing with your head.”

 

Natasha shrugged, accepting Sam’s revision.

 

Steve rolled his eyes, but allowed Sam to push him back into the kitchen.

 

Bucky and Natasha followed, Natasha immediately going for the freezer and the vodka.

 

“No self-defense class tonight?” Sam asked as he watched her pour herself a rocks glass full of the liquor and nothing else.

 

“Nope. Every other Wednesday.”

 

“Assuming he lets you back in,” Bucky pointed out.

 

Natasha glared at him.

 

Steve sighed.

 

“Natasha, what did you do to the civilian?”

 

“She got made,” Bucky said, because he had to. Natasha  _ never _ failed. And he had been sitting on this since last week, not telling Steve at work, waiting to deliver the bomb in front of Steve and Sam because neither of them ever had their dick at her mercy, so they could give her endless shit over it.

 

The look Natasha gave him was very sharp and very cold.

 

Definitely a ‘no sex night’ tonight.

 

“A civilian made you?” Sam grinned. “Oh. Oh, baby. Tell me everything. Wait. Let me bust out the champagne.”

 

Bucky thought he was joking, but Sam actually pulled a bottle of champagne from the fridge and poured himself, Steve and Bucky each a glass of the stuff.

 

“Okay.  _ Now _ tell me everything,” Sam commanded after taking a sip.

 

“There’s not much to tell,” Natasha said after draining her glass. “He realized I wasn’t incompetent, and then I took him out for coffee yesterday.”

 

She had, of course, skipped over  _ a lot _ . But Bucky wasn’t stupid enough to bring up any of what she had skipped over.

 

“Uh huh. Yeah. That sounds exactly like one of your usually-detailed debriefings.” Steve nodded.

 

Natasha glared.

 

“A date, huh? Did anyone get stabbed or arrested?” Sam asked.

 

“No,” Natasha said, looking smug. “And we have another date on Friday night.”

 

“Another date?” Steve raised his eyebrows. “Is he playing hard-to-get? I don’t think you’ve ever needed a second date to get someone into bed before.”

 

“I’m getting to know him. Taking things slow,” Natasha said as she poured herself another glass of vodka.

 

Steve and Sam exchanged looks of silent  _ what the fuck _ ?

 

“They’re going to see a  _ movie _ ,” Bucky said, because when Natasha had called him last night to tell him about her date with Clint, he hadn’t been able to stop laughing. 

 

Natasha Romanov at a movie theatre on a  _ date _ . It was surreal. Bucky was tempted to tail her just to watch her squirm when confronted with so many civilians and something as banal as a  _ movie _ .

 

“Okay. Seriously. What the fuck?” Sam came out and asked. “What kind of sick game are you two playing with this guy?”

 

“Hey, I’m not taking him to see a movie for our second date,” Bucky pointed out.

 

“No,” Natasha agreed. “You’re going hiking with him on Saturday. Hiking.”

 

“I’m so confused.  _ Neither _ of you have fucked him yet? Are you even trying?” Sam asked.

 

“We’re dating him,” Bucky sniffed. “Forming a relationship. Not every interaction between humans is about sex, Wilson.”

 

Sam opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and then closed it and shook his head.

 

“So,” Steve crossed his arms over his chest, “you two are dating the same guy?”

 

“Yes.” Natasha shrugged. “We’ve already done a background check on him. He’s attractive and… interesting.”

 

“You know that that’s not normal, right?” Steve asked. “You two are best friends, and you’re both dating the same guy.”

 

“We share a type,” Bucky said. “What’s wrong with that?”

 

“I honestly don’t even know where to start,” Sam sighed. “I- I really think I could write my doctoral thesis on you two and probably win a Nobel prize if I ever figured out how to unfuck you both.”

 

“Steve, is the oven supposed to be smoking?” Natasha asked, tone idle.

 

“What - oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

 

Natasha downed her second glass of vodka while Sam and Steve huddled in front of the oven.

 

And then she and Bucky left to go get pizza.

 

“It’s not that fucked-up,” he assured Steve on Thursday afternoon as they worked out in the S.H.I.E.L.D. gym together.

 

They had commandeered two of the rowing machines in one corner of the room, eschewing the heavy-rotation machines in favor of a bit of solitude.

 

Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter, Natasha Romanov and Bucky Barnes had individually and collectively inspired more than a few rumors and myths around S.H.I.E.L.D. That Bucky and Natasha were now benched, for another two weeks, and for reasons unknown to all but Fury, Hill and Coulson, meant that they were the source of even more gossip.

 

Bucky had gotten tired of the looks, frankly, and Steve had never enjoyed them.

 

“It is that fucked-up,” Steve retorted. “Bucky, how many actual relationships have you had?”

 

“Define ‘relationship’.”

 

“I don’t know… dating someone for at least a month?”

 

“Well. There was Dolores Brown, in middle school-”

 

“That doesn’t fucking count.”

 

“We went steady for three months, Stevie. I gave her my chocolate pudding every day, and carried her books to class. She even kissed me twice. Let me touch her breasts once too.”

 

“Fine. If you really need to include your middle school romance to be able to say you’ve been in  _ one _ relationship, then-”

 

“And there was you,” Bucky added. “That lasted for way more than a month.”

 

Steve sighed.

 

“And how did that end?”

 

“Better than it did with Dolores. She punched me.”

 

“That’s because she caught you necking with Tommy Schroedder.”

 

Bucky grinned at the memory.

 

“Yeah. Tommy, though. He was something else. I ever tell you about the time we-”

 

“Yes. I am one hundred percent sure you did.” Steve glared at him. “So. Dolores. Me. Anyone else aside from Natasha?”

 

“Natasha and I don’t have a relationship.”

 

Steve lifted one eyebrow at him.

 

“We don’t. We’re friends. We’re work colleagues.”

 

“Who have more sex than most married couples.”

 

“Ouch. You need to talk about it, Steve? Wilson not giving you enough of that D?”

 

“Why do I even talk to you?” Steve muttered to himself.

 

“Nobody else likes looking at your ugly mug as much as me,” Bucky said with a smirk.

 

“I’m just saying. You and Dolores - crashed and burned because you got bored and you’re a vain asshole who liked having the cutest boy in our class after you.”

 

“Fair.”

 

“And you and  _ me _ …” Steve gave him a meaningful look, and Bucky sucked in a breath. 

 

That was still, all these years later, dangerous territory. It was one of those things they just didn’t talk about. Like that time they walked in on Steve and Bucky’s mothers. 

 

“Yeah. Another crash and burn,” Bucky hastened to say. “You trying to suggest there’s a pattern?”

 

“No. Well. Maybe. I  _ was _ trying to suggest that the only stable, long-term relationship you’ve ever had that you haven’t fucked up is what you have with Natasha, and I’m not sure if you two trying to date the same guy is the best idea.”

 

“Natasha and I don’t have a relationship,” Bucky stubbornly insisted.

 

“Would you die for her?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Would she die for you?”

 

“She’d murder people for me.”

 

“Close enough. If you could only talk to one person for the rest of your life - would it be her?”

 

“Well, yeah. She wouldn’t bore me to death talking about  _ podcasts _ .” Bucky barely avoided the slap Steve sent his way.

 

“Does she make you happy?”

 

“Most of the time.”

 

“And do you want to make  _ her _ happy?”

 

“Most of the time.”

 

“Sounds like a relationship to me.”

 

“Oh, fuck off. You’ve been spending too much time with Sam. Natasha and I aren’t in a relationship.”

 

Bucky angrily got up from the rowing machine.

 

“Uh huh. Hey, what are you doing tonight? Want to come over and watch the Nationals game?”

 

“Can’t. Natasha and I-” Bucky cut himself off and glared at Steve.

 

Steve smirked and rose to his feet. He stretched his hands to the ceiling, damn near touching it.

 

“Natasha and you what?”

 

“We’re going out.”

 

“Well. You two work colleagues have fun.”

 

“Go to hell, jerk.”

 

“You’re blocking the elevator down,” Steve snarked back before walking away.

 

Bucky glared at his retreat, glad he had caught himself in time before  _ actually _ telling Steve what he and Natasha were doing that night.

 

They were going out, sure.

 

But it was to a bar in Silver City that just happened to have a dart contest on Thursday nights.

 

They weren’t positive Clint would be there. 

 

But the bar was three blocks from his house, and the guy was a former sniper.

 

Why  _ wouldn’t _ he be there?


	9. Chapter 9

Clint was there.

 

He was also clearly used to having zero competition at dart contests.

 

When Natasha and Bucky walked into the bar, the contest was already underway, Clint had clearly had a few drinks, and was blindfolded and being spun around in circles before being released and told to take his shot.

 

Remarkably, ridiculously, he took two steps to redirect himself and then lobbed the dart in his hand with such a carefree motion that Bucky was convinced there was no way it would reach its mark.

 

The dart landed on the triple 15.

 

Bucky was impressed. It was one thing, really, to be able to consistently hit the bullseyes, but this darts contest was Cricket - so the players had to close out the 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, and then the bullseye. 

 

Looking at the score, Clint had just achieved his last number before moving on to the bullseye.

 

Beside Bucky, Natasha hummed in amusement.

 

“Wonder what he was like with a rifle,” Bucky mused.

 

“You and your sniper wet dreams,” Natasha muttered.

 

Bucky grinned at her, and she shoved his shoulder, pushing him towards the bar to order them drinks.

 

By the time he had made it through the crowd and secured a vodka tonic for Natasha and a bottle of Sam Adams for himself, Clint had vanquished his opponent and was offering the guy a conciliatory handshake and a pat on the back.

 

“He’s getting more action from Clint than either of us,” Bucky pointed out as he handed over Natasha’s drink.

 

“Dating is the worst,” Natasha muttered.

 

Bucky nodded in agreement.

 

They watched Clint and the guy part, and then Clint turned to a nearby table and picked up a bottle of Budweiser. He seemed perfectly content to lean back against the wall and watch the next two contestants battle, and Bucky was starting to wonder if either he or Natasha was going to have to do something like fire one of their guns to get Clint’s attention.

 

But then one of the contestants missed, and Clint, smirking a little, shook his head and turned to the side and-

 

Caught sight of Bucky and Natasha.

 

Clint’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and his mouth slowly curved into a smirk that was a little closer to predatory than Bucky would have expected from him.

 

“Fuck,” Bucky muttered, because sexy-predator was a  _ look _ on Barton that gave Bucky a lot of feelings in his pants.

 

Beside him, Natasha nodded in fervent agreement with Bucky’s sentiment.

 

Clint tilted his head back and finished off his beer, throat working as he swallowed it down, and Bucky was pretty sure that  _ that _ was a personal attack on both Natasha and him.

 

But then Clint set the empty bottle down and sauntered across the bar to where Natasha and Bucky stood ogling him like fresh SHIELD recruits seeing Steve work out in the gym for the first time.

 

Clint came to a stop in front of them, close enough that Bucky could see the freckles across the bridge of his nose even in the shitty bar lighting.

 

Clint’s gaze was still predatory, still some blend of amusement and calculation that totally did it for Bucky, as he looked over the pair of them.

 

“Fancy seeing you two here,” Clint finally drawled.

 

Bucky forced his shoulders into a casual shrug. Clint’s lips twitched.

 

“We were in the neighborhood,” Natasha murmured. “Saw the sign for a darts contest and thought we’d give it a try.”

 

“Mm,” Clint nodded, lips tugged into his lopsided smirk. “Didn’t realize insurance claims adjusters liked to play darts.”

 

“We’re human, just like everyone else,” Bucky insisted.

 

That had both Clint and Natasha looking like they were trying to keep straight faces. Bucky rolled his eyes.

 

“Why are  _ you _ here?” he asked, reminding himself that he was a professional, that he knew how to run interrogations and covert ops.

 

“Darts contest. Plus, I live three blocks down, so it’s my local bar.”

 

Bucky nodded, like this was news to him.

 

Natasha looked between Clint and the people currently playing darts.

 

“Too late to enter?” she asked.

 

Clint grinned.

 

“Nah, plenty of time to still enter. You two gonna pretend like you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, or you actually gonna give me some decent action tonight?”

 

Bucky raised his eyebrows.

 

Clint raised his right back.

 

Natasha snorted a laugh and tossed back the rest of her drink.

 

“If you want decent action tonight, then I suggest you step up your game,” she said as she set her glass down on the nearest table.

 

Both Bucky and Clint watched her stalk over to the contest sign-ups. Clint sighed.

 

“She’s amazing,” he said, sounding head over heels for Natasha already.

 

Bucky nodded in fervent agreement.

 

“She really is.”

 

Clint turned and smirked at him again.

 

“C’mon, let’s see what kind of skills you’ve got.”

 

-o-

 

As Bucky settled into a chair and took a sip of his fifth beer, he had to admit that he was a little disappointed and a lot turned on by the results of the darts contest.

 

It became obvious, as soon as Natasha and then Bucky took their first turns, that no one in the bar could come close to them. No one except for Clint, at least. After Bucky beat Natasha in a semi-final round, and only just barely, he and Clint faced off for the final match. And Clint, as it turned out, was a dirty fucking cheater.

 

Whenever he moved aside to let Bucky take his throws, Clint did this maddening, subtle slide of his hand over Bucky’s shoulders or back or waist, and it was not  _ fair _ . It was especially not fair for Clint to stand in his line of sight, leaning on one elbow right beside Natasha, the both of them looking over at him with their lips curved and their eyes dark, and frankly, the world wasn't fair. At all. 

 

So yeah, Bucky was a little distracted, off his game just enough that Clint beat him by such a small margin that it was criminal. Just as criminal as Clint’s grin, as his smug little smirk when he was handed his trophy. The trophy itself was ridiculous - an empty beer bottle that had been spray-painted gold - but Clint accepted it as if it was the Stanley Cup, and maybe Bucky would have found that adorable if he wasn’t so irritated with himself for letting fantasies of Clint blowing him ruin his aim. 

 

That said, smug was a damn good look on Clint. He collected his free pitcher of beer from the bar and joined Natasha and Bucky at the table they had sequestered in a corner still smirking, still giving Bucky all kinds of ideas that ranged from inappropriate to deeply inappropriate. 

 

“Thanks for the competition,” Clint said as he slid into his seat and flashed his grin at both Bucky and Natasha. 

 

Natasha was sipping on her third vodka tonic of the night, and she arched an eyebrow at him.

 

“If you really wanted competition, you wouldn’t have made sure all James could think about was your dick,” she mused.

 

Bucky flushed, but Clint just laughed.

 

“Well, there’s competition, and then there’s having fun. Plus, I did tell you both I was looking for some action tonight.”

 

Clint’s gaze was heated, and Bucky… Bucky was struggling to remember why they had made that stupid ‘four date’ rule. 

 

“I hate to think we’ve given you the impression that either of us is  _ that _ easy,” Natasha said. Bucky was glad she still had the wherewithal to stick to the plan, because if it was up to him, he’d be suggesting a bathroom blowjob for the winner.

 

Clint licked his lips, nodded, and then took a sip from his beer.

 

“Easy definitely isn’t how I’d label either of you.”

 

“Oh? And how would you label us?” Natasha asked.

 

“Difficult,” Clint was still grinning. “Sexy as hell. Intimidating. Overkill.”

 

“Overkill?” Bucky repeated. 

 

Clint nodded, and his mouth flattened out into a hard line. He set his glass down on the table and leaned forwards. 

 

“Yeah. Definitely overkill. Not that I don’t appreciate the effort, but surely SHIELD has a better use for you two than this whole…” Clint waved a hand at Bucky and Natasha “double-team honeypot thing.” 

 

Bucky froze, and beside him, Natasha angled her body away from him. It was something she did right before almost every firefight they had ever gone into, giving Bucky her back to protect and opening up so she could cover more room.

 

Clint’s eyes tracked the movement, as well as Bucky’s stillness.

 

“SHIELD?” Natasha said the name of the intelligence agency as though she was unfamiliar with it. “What’s SHIELD?”

 

Clint rolled his eyes.

 

“Don’t,” he said, sounding irritated. It was the first time Bucky had ever heard that tone from him. And considering the lengths people went to in the yoga classes to get Clint’s hands on them, it was a little surprising.

 

“Two incredibly fit, attractive people with scars and healed bullet wounds show up in my yoga class, and the very next day I get a call from  _ three _ guys from my former unit telling me that someone’s looking into me. That same fucking night, I get a call from three nurses I used to know and the doctor who patched me up before I was discharged - everyone saying that some intel agency is asking about me. And since my conversation with the CIA and NSA fucks was about as far from polite as I can get without actually punching anyone, I know they made their peace with me telling them to fuck off. And I’m flattered - tell Coulson that, when you report back to him and tell him to leave me alone. Sending the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow out to seduce and recruit little old me? Great ego boost. But my answer is the same as it was the last time Coulson tried to recruit me, and the time before that and the time before that: I’m retired. I’m out.”

 

And that… was a lot to process.

 

Bucky had known Clint had his doubts about the insurance claims adjuster cover, but… well, the fact that he actually knew exactly who Bucky and Natasha were - down to their SHIELD code names - was unsettling.

 

“We aren’t trying to recruit you for SHIELD,” Natasha said, her voice that cool, calm one she used when she was trying to keep people from blowing themselves up.

 

Clint rolled his eyes.

 

“Right. You’re just two SHIELD agents who want to  _ date _ a yoga instructor.”

 

Natasha stared back at him, blank-faced.

 

Clint huffed in exasperation and looked over at Bucky.

 

“What’s so crazy about that?” Bucky asked.

 

Clint gave him a look.

 

Bucky returned it.

 

“So, you… what… came to my class, thought I was hot, and decided to do a background check on me?”

 

Having already gotten this speech from Sam and Steve, both Bucky and Natasha’s shoulders slumped.

 

“Yes,” Natasha answered for them. “You were wearing Rangers panties.”

 

Bucky nodded - because,  _ exactly _ .

 

Clint continued to stare at them.

 

“You know, this is just fucked-up enough to almost be believable, given my luck.” He shook his head and poured himself another glass of beer from his pitcher.

 

For a few moments, he sipped it in silence and considered Bucky and Natasha.

 

“So,” Clint eventually leaned back in his chair, “you’re not trying to recruit me to join your super secret spy club.”

 

“No,” Bucky answered.

 

“The two of you want to date me. Not just fuck me, but…  _ date _ me.” He said it like it was as foreign a concept to him as it was to both Bucky and Natasha. Given their conversation when Bucky took him out for a beer, that was hardly surprising.

 

“Yes,” Natasha answered.

 

“Fucking -  _ why _ ? I’m an absolute mess, and I’m a fucking yoga teacher. You two are hotshot spies who could fuck anyone they wanted. What the hell do you want with me?”

 

“Rangers panties,” Bucky said, and regretted it almost immediately when both Natasha and Clint turned to stare at him.

 

Natasha’s lips twitched.

 

“He always this eloquent?” Clint asked Natasha.

 

“More or less,” Natasha said, and that just wasn’t fair at  _ all _ . 

 

“Explain,” Clint ordered.

 

“You’re not just some random hot guy we want to fuck,” Bucky said. “ You served. You did black ops. You… know a little what it’s like to do what we do. You’re disciplined. You’re smart. Funny. Patient.”

 

Clint looked like he still wasn’t convinced.

 

“We’ve been ordered to work on our interpersonal skills and emotional connections to people who aren’t ourselves and each other,” Natasha sighed.

 

Clint choked on a laugh.

 

“Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. I’m- I’m your  _ therapy homework _ ?”

 

When he put it like that… it sounded really, really awful. Really and truly pathetic.

 

“Is that a problem?” Natasha asked, in her calmest, blankest voice.

 

Clint looked at her, and there was a long, tense stretch of silence between them.

 

“No,” Clint decided. “Actually, it’s not a problem at all. I don’t mind you two using me for sex and… emotional connections, or whatever. I  _ do _ mind being lied to and being fucked over, so if we’re going to do… whatever the fuck this is, there’s no lies, and there’s no stabbing me in the back. If there’s something you can’t talk about, just say that, but there’s a reason I got out and there’s a reason I’m not going back in.”

 

Bucky was incredibly curious about just what that reason was. Now, though, probably wasn’t the time to ask about it. Even with his piss-poor people skills, he knew that much.

 

“Fair,” Bucky said. Natasha nodded in agreement.

 

Clint grinned, and just like that, the mounting tension melted away, leaving the three of them sitting there looking at each other.

 

“So, when  _ is _ the fucking going to happen?” Clint asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

 

“After date four,” Natasha said. “That was the rule we made. Four dates before either of us could make a move on you.”

 

Clint nodded thoughtfully.

 

“So, does this… count as a date? Like, date two?” He was doing that sexy as hell, smug smirk again.

 

Bucky simultaneously wanted to crawl under the table and die and crawl over the table and into Clint’s lap.

 

“Yes, this is date two,” Natasha confirmed, and Clint’s smirk grew impossibly more smug.

 

“So, our movie tomorrow and hiking on Saturday - date three?”

 

Bucky and Natasha nodded.

 

“Okay. Cool. I can work with that. Actually-”

 

Bucky’s phone chirped, the emergency settings overriding the fact that he had set it to vibrate. Beside him, Natasha’s phone did the same.

 

Across the table, Clint sighed and sat back in his chair.

 

Frowning, Bucky pulled his phone out and checked the message.

 

It was from Coulson.

 

**Report to HQ. Actionable intel and small window of opportunity.**

 

Huh.

 

That sounded a lot like they were no longer benched.

 

Natasha looked up from her own phone and arched an eyebrow at him.

 

She didn’t need to say it out loud - it was clear her mind was going down the same track as his own.

 

Odds were, Rumlow and Rollins had fucked up with Dragan, and now Coulson was calling in Natasha and Bucky to clean up the mess.

 

“Duty calls?” Clint guessed. The smile on his face was tight, and his eyes were almost empty-looking. This, Bucky realized, was probably the closest they had ever come to seeing the Clint who had been a sniper with the Rangers. 

 

Bucky nodded.

 

“Gonna need to raincheck on date number three?” Clint asked.

 

Fuck. They probably would.

 

“Sorry,” Natasha said, and she sounded like she genuinely meant it. Hell, she probably did. Bucky still hadn’t completely unraveled Natasha’s inner workings - probably never would - but he knew her well enough to know that, almost above all else, she found competence attractive. And Clint? Consistently calling them on their shit, beating them in darts, knowing exactly who they were? That was competence in the extreme.

 

Clint shrugged, as if he didn’t care, but there was tension in the lines of his body that gave away just how bothered he really was by the fact that Natasha and Bucky were who they were.

 

“Well, if you’re gonna be heading out for a while, I better give you something good to remember me by, huh?” Clint forced a smile and rose from his chair.

 

Bucky wasn’t sure what he was about to do, but Clint grabbing the back of Natasha’s chair, straddling her lap and kissing her wasn’t one of his guesses.

 

Clint was supporting himself, evident by the flex of muscles in his arms and thighs, but the way that he still managed to somehow sink into Natasha’s embrace and let her completely control the kiss might be the hottest thing Bucky had ever seen. Natasha’s arms went around Clint’s waist, slender fingers curled into the fabric of his t-shirt at the base of his spine.

 

Someone - Bucky couldn’t tell if it was Natasha or Clint - made a breathy, gasping moan into the kiss, and Bucky… Bucky could happily spend the rest of his life sitting here watching the two of them kiss. There was nothing chaste or shy about it - Natasha’s parted lips were caressing Clint’s, and Bucky could see their jaws working, cheeks flexing and lips glistening as the kiss went on and on. It was almost unbearably erotic.

 

But then Clint pulled back from the kiss, both Natasha and him breathing hard, both of their eyes dark and lips full and wet, and  _ that _ was even more unbearable.

 

Clint rose from Natasha’s lap and straddled Bucky in a move so quick and fluid it seemed rehearsed. Unlike with Natasha, Clint didn’t bother supporting his own weight. He sat his perfect ass down on Bucky’s thighs and pressed close, and went right for Bucky’s mouth.

 

It was exciting, a little intimidating, and incredibly arousing to experience Clint’s ability to switch between such wildly different dynamics - letting Natasha control their kiss and then turning around and taking what felt like total control of Bucky only seconds later. 

 

Bucky held on for dear life, fingers finding the same spot Natasha had at the small of Clint’s back, and Clint sucked on his lower lip before biting down and coaxing Bucky’s mouth open around a moan.

 

There was something a little wild, a little frantic, about the way Clint kissed, that was so fantastically different than the way he seemed in every other physical aspect. Clint knew he was attractive, knew how to use his body for work and flirtation, knew how to get and do what he wanted. But kissing felt like Clint lost his patience for finesse and flirting and teasing, and just wanted  _ more _ .

 

It was heady stuff, and Bucky was pretty sure he could have stayed sitting there in a shitty bar with Clint in his lap and Clint’s tongue down his throat and Clint’s half-hard dick rubbing against his own through their jeans.

 

But then their phones chirped again.

 

Clint groaned and pulled away.

 

Bucky reluctantly let him go, and Clint stood up and looked down at Bucky and Natasha.

 

“Don’t do any stupid shit while you’re gone,” he said, and there was actual force behind the words, as if he really cared what happened to them.

 

“We’ll let you know when we’re back,” Natasha said as she stood up.

 

Clint nodded.

 

“Also,” Bucky had to add. “I want a rematch.”

 

Clint grinned.

 

“Sure. But next time, we play naked, and we do shots between each throw.”

  
If  _ that _ wasn’t enough of an incentive to get this mission taken care of as quickly as possible, Bucky didn’t know what was.


End file.
